Javier Tebas has fired a strongly worded message at Real Madrid over the Negreira case, defending the league's procedures and taking aim at the way the club's television channel has handled the matter.
The La Liga president wrote on his official "X" account: "I still fully believe the same thing aboutthe Negreira case. What happened was extremely serious and must be investigated to the very end."
"It is natural to investigate events that ended years ago, but it is completely unacceptable to build a narrative in 2026 claiming that Negreira still influences Spanish refereeing today," he added. "This is scandalous. Repeating it on Real Madrid's channel does not make it true."
Tebas then set out the purpose of the legal process. "This is precisely why legal procedures have existed for years: to clarify whether the payments influenced the refereeing system, in particular the promotions and relegations of referees, and to determine whether these acts constitute sporting corruption and carry criminal consequences," he said. "Let the judges carry out their investigations, let all the evidence be gathered, and let them follow the case through to the end."
He went on: "But in the meantime, what do some people want? Do they want us to exclude Barcelona and its current board from the league? Do they want the league to replace the courts, issue its own ruling, and carry out a punishment before a judicial verdict is handed down? Moreover, the statute of limitations in the Spanish sporting disciplinary field has expired. This has been clarified time and again."
Criticism of the events themselves is fair game, he insisted, but inventing more is not. "You can strongly criticise what happened, and I have done so from the start, while at the same time refusing to accept the false claim that Negreira still influences Spanish refereeing many years after those events ended," he continued. "This is not a pursuit of the truth, but an attempt to keep a narrative alive."
His closing words were aimed squarely at Real Madrid's television channel and other journalists: "The facts are serious enough without the need to invent more, which is what Real Madrid's television channel is doing."