Football Presse

Real Madrid president and Barcelona set for November court meeting

·By Carlos Volcano
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Real Madrid president and Barcelona set for November court meeting

Real Madrid/X.com

Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez and Barcelona have been summoned to a conciliation hearing in Madrid following the legal action launched by the Catalan club over comments made by the Madrid president.

The hearing is scheduled for November 25 at 9.40am in courtroom 1/2 of the Madrid courts, with Barcelona seeking a retraction from Pérez over statements made during a press conference in May.

According to reports from COPE and MARCA, the hearing forms part of the preliminary legal process initiated by Barcelona before a potential criminal complaint for alleged defamation.

Barcelona announced in June that it had filed the required conciliation action against Pérez following his press conference on May 12 and comments made to a media outlet the following day.

The club said its objective was for Pérez to retract statements it considered defamatory and damaging to Barcelona's reputation.

In his May press conference, Pérez spoke at length about the Negreira case and criticised the scale of the controversy surrounding payments made by Barcelona to companies linked to former refereeing official José María Enríquez Negreira.

"The corruption in the Negreira case is systemic. It is the biggest scandal in history," Pérez said.

He also questioned calls for the matter to be forgotten and said Real Madrid had prepared a 500-page dossier that would be sent to UEFA.

"We are going to see if we can be serious and UEFA finally intervenes in this matter, which it will, because it cannot allow the most important football in Europe to be under the suspicion of corruption paid for over 20 years," Pérez said.

Pérez also claimed that Real Madrid had lost seven league titles because of refereeing decisions.

"I've been here for I don't know how many seasons and I've only won seven Champions Leagues and seven leagues, which could have been 14 because seven leagues have been stolen from me," he said.

Barcelona subsequently responded through vice-president Rafael Yuste, who said Pérez had crossed a line with his comments.

"He has resorted to infamy to destabilise us. We'll meet in court. Nobody stains the name of Barça, this badge. We'll take care of it," Yuste said.

Barcelona's June statement said the club had initiated the process over alleged calumnies under Article 205 of the Spanish Criminal Code and warned that failure to secure a satisfactory response would lead to a criminal complaint.

The next stage of the dispute will therefore take place in Madrid on November 25, when Pérez and Barcelona are due to attend the conciliation hearing.