Former Spanish referee backs Barcelona in Negreira case: “Did not buy refs”

Eduardo Iturralde is one of the most famous retired Spanish referees. In his illustrious career in arbitration, he has overseen high-octane clashes across the world including the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League.

In his long interaction with MARCA earlier this week, the former referee touched upon the topic of Barcelona and the Negreira scandal. He began the conversation with a tall claim saying that it ‘the most serious thing in Spanish football.’

“The most serious thing that has happened to Spanish football and one of the most serious in the world. The fact that a club has paid a vice president seems very serious to me.”

He then defended the people of his profession by claiming that referees can never be wrong, indirectly pushing the blame onto the Catalans.

“The one who insinuates that this is about arbitrators is that he does not know how arbitration works. He doesn’t know him!”

Iturralde then went on to highlight the reality behind the scenes as to how Negreira duped the Blaugrana institution by selling easily available reports for premium prices and how the payments had nothing to do with on-field decisions.

“This is about a club that has wanted to have profits or whatever with a vice president who has sold them smoke and they have bought the smoke from millions. But that money hasn’t ended up in any referee. Enriquez has not had any influence with any referee.”

To back up his point, he admitted that Negreira never accompanied him to any such occasion where he could have an influence on the decisions he was about to make on the field.

“He has never accompanied me. You have to say the names. There were two or three, but it wasn’t a general rule.”

The former Spanish arbitrator then vouched for the referees of his time to deny the possibility of any decisions during the game being skewered.

“Yes, for those of my time, yes. Because I know how this works. None will come out of my time. Everything else is demagoguery.”

Joan Laporta is set to deliver a statement on the entire issue on Monday, and Iturralde insisted that the Catalan President should talk about where the money that was paid is.

“I would put my hands in the fire. Barcelona never bought referees. Laporta should explain everything, where the money is.”

“I hope you clarify everything, tell me where the money is. If you don’t tell me where the last euro is, don’t do the press conference. If it’s not going to be like that, don’t go out. For the sake of football, the best thing is for Laporta to say where he is on Monday.”

Finally, the Spanish man was asked what the fault in paying referees for reports was, for it was a relatively common occurrence. To this, he said,

“Of course it’s important. You can pay 100 million for a report to a former referee, but paying one euro to a CTA vice president by a club is very serious.“