Javier Tebas picked the stage carefully. Standing at the World in Progress Barcelona 2026 forum on Monday, the La Liga president turned his microphone on the one club that has fought hardest to keep the Negreira case alive, and accused it of doing so for sporting rather than legal reasons.
“The chewing gum is being stretched to see how long it lasts. And I believe that is unacceptable,” Tebas told the forum, according to Goal.
His argument was procedural as much as rhetorical. La Liga, he pointed out, approached prosecutors over the Negreira payments before Real Madrid did, and only became a party in the case because the facts troubled it. What has changed since then, in his telling, is not the evidence but the politics around the two clubs.
Super League as the pivot point
Tebas drew a straight line between Real Madrid’s conduct in the courts and Barcelona’s exit from the Super League project.
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“Until that time, it seemed that what was required was to leave the judicial proceedings to run their course. But since Barcelona withdrew from the Super League, it has become as if Negreira is in the dressing rooms of all the referees who officiate Real Madrid’s matches,” he told the forum.
Barcelona formally withdrew from the breakaway project on 7 February 2026, leaving Real Madrid as the last founding club still signed up before Florentino Pérez’s side reached its own settlement with UEFA days later. Tebas’s claim is that Madrid’s energy for the Negreira file sharpened in step with that split, not with any new finding by the courts.
What the case actually is
The investigation at Barcelona’s Court of Instruction No. 1 centres on roughly €7.3 million paid by the club to companies linked to José María Enríquez Negreira, former vice-president of Spain’s Technical Committee of Referees, between 2001 and 2018. Barcelona has consistently described the payments as fees for scouting reports on referees. Prosecutors are pursuing charges of sports corruption and related offences.
A key charge has already fallen. In May 2024 the court dismissed bribery charges on the grounds that Negreira did not qualify as a public official under Spanish law. The sports corruption strand continues, with a verdict not expected until late 2027.
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Real Madrid participates in the proceedings as a private prosecutor. On 1 September 2026 the investigating judge rejected the club’s request for a further six-month extension of the inquiry, while allowing the two outstanding witness testimonies scheduled for November to go ahead within the existing deadline.
No new evidence, Tebas insists
The La Liga chief stressed that nothing has emerged in the file to justify the tone of the attacks on Barcelona. On that point he returned to the Super League thread, repeating the suggestion that Pérez had publicly treated Barcelona as an ally while the two clubs were still aligned on the breakaway, and only hardened his line after the Catalan side left.
Real Madrid did not respond publicly to Monday’s remarks. The next concrete step in the case is the pair of witness hearings scheduled for November, after which the preliminary phase is due to close and the file moves towards a trial date penciled in for the autumn of 2027.
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