Barcelona president Joan Laporta attacked his Real Madrid counterpart, Florentino Pérez, over his recent statements against the Catalan club, claiming that Barça has become an “obsession” for Real Madrid. He emphasized that his club will not stand idly by and fail to respond to any attacks from their eternal rivals.
During his speech at Real Madrid’s General Assembly, Pérez insisted that Barcelona had bribed Neguera, the vice president of the referees’ committee, and claimed this was the reason for the Blaugrana’s best period in history, from 2004 to 2015.
Laporta responded strongly in statements on Friday, saying, “In Madrid, they have a persecution obsession with the best era in Barcelona’s history.”
He added, “They didn’t like that Barcelona was a global benchmark from 2004 to 2015 when Barcelona was dominant. They want to find justifications that lead nowhere.”
He added, “We were the team that played the best football, recognized and admired worldwide for what we offered, recognized for what we did, and admired for how we did it. We won many titles, and our style of play was admired globally, so don’t look for excuses from losers.”
Regarding the Negreira incident, Laporta said, “Barcelona has never bribed referees, and generally speaking, referees don’t favor Barcelona; they’ve favored Madrid their whole lives.”
He continued, “Without going into too much detail, in the last round, Madrid scored two goals that, in my opinion, shouldn’t have stood: Bellingham handled the ball, and Vinicius broke Peña’s nose. These two goals shouldn’t have been allowed, and Barcelona would be leading La Liga now.”
He concluded, “I think these (Pérez’s statements) reflect the Barcelona obsession that Madrid suffers from. It seems they have to talk about Barcelona to justify, I don’t know what.”
