Florentino Perez is back in office and the fight around Barcelona is already being sharpened. Real Madrid are reportedly preparing a 500-page dossier for UEFA, with Perez saying he will send it once the competition is over. The request goes well beyond a routine complaint. It includes a call for sanctions that could stop Barcelona from playing in European competitions and a push to remove their titles won between 2001 and 2018 from the club’s official record.
What Real Madrid are asking UEFA to do
Perez did not leave much room for ambiguity in the quote shared by si.com. “We’re preparing a 500-page dossier that I’ll send to UEFA when the competition is over. I’ve already spoken with them. There’s no precedent for this in the history of world football. It’s the biggest corruption case ever,” he said. He also called the Negreira case “the systemic corruption of the Negreira case … How can we just forget it?”
That is a serious escalation. Real Madrid are not just asking for punishment in the abstract, they want UEFA to consider action that could keep Barcelona out of Europe. They are also seeking to strip titles from the club’s record between 2001 and 2018. UEFA has no jurisdiction over La Liga titles, so that part of the request reads more like pressure than a clean legal route.
The political backdrop matters here too. Real Madrid sit 9th in the 2025 UEFA Champions League table with 15 points from 8 matches, and they are 2nd in La Liga with 86 points. This is not a club that has been pushed to the margins while making noise from outside the competition. It is making the push from the centre of European football.
Pérez’s re-election has not softened Madrid’s stance. It has given it a fresh platform, and the club’s message is now aimed at UEFA as much as it is at Barcelona. The only real uncertainty is how far UEFA will go, but Madrid are clearly trying to move the case from domestic scandal into European sanction territory.
Why the timing matters now
There is a wider backdrop around the presidency too. Javier Tebas used the election result to argue that Enrique Riquelme’s 35 percent share of the vote should make any president think twice, after he had been largely unknown 15 days earlier. That is a separate political read, and it does not change the main point: Pérez won, and he is using the mandate to press the Negreira issue harder.
The Diarra settlement sits in the same legal landscape, even if it is a different case. FIFA said it has settled all legal proceedings with Lassana Diarra, who had been seeking €65 million in damages after the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in October that FIFA regulations breached EU labour law and freedom of movement. FIFA also made clear that the settlement was not an admission of liability or a compensation payment.
That matters because it shows how often football’s governing fights end up in legal and regulatory territory, not just on the pitch. In Madrid’s case, though, the immediate story is simpler. Pérez is back, the dossier is coming, and Barcelona are once again the target of a campaign that is now aimed at UEFA as well as the Spanish game.
If UEFA acts, the consequences could go well beyond a fine or warning. If it does not, Madrid will still have made its point, and the argument over the Negreira case will keep moving between Spain and Europe.
Compiled by the ClutchBrief Desk with AI assistance, cross-checked against 3 outlets. How we work →