Spanish FA Chief Reveals Real Madrid President Florentino Perez Threatened to Bring In English Referees in La Liga

Spanish FA chief has revealed that Real Madrid president Florentino Perez threatened to bring in English referees in La Liga.
IMAGO / ZUMA Press Wire

Real Madrid has been vocal about the level of officiating in La Liga for a while. Club president Florentino Perez has been one of the biggest critics of the refereeing standards.

Spanish FA chief Rafael Louzan has revealed that Perez jokingly threatened to bring in English referees to the Spanish top flight.

This happened after the infamous Negreira incident involving Los Blancos' arch-rivals Barcelona. There were allegations that Barcelona made illegal payments to former vice-president of the refereeing committee, Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira.

Speaking on the El Cafelito Podcast, Louzan said:

My relationship with Florentino Perez, which was before this, is good. The thing is that Florentino states emphatically that he feels harmed in the field of refereeing and so on. I tell him that it [the Negreira case'] is in the hands of justice. What am I going to decide? He told me one day that he was going to bring in English referees to whistle.

Rafael Louzan

He further added:

In Saudi Arabia a year ago, he took me aside and said: “you have to resolve this issue of the referees that is harming us and we have lost many titles because of the referees”

Rafael Louzan
Real Madrid president Florentino Perez
IMAGO / NurPhoto

Real Madrid TV has recently been vocal about the level of refereeing in Los Blancos' matches, especially in domestic games. Hence, Perez's words aren't surprising.

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Apratim Banerjee
APRATIM BANERJEE

Apratim is an experienced sports journalist having covered European and World Football, Combat Sports, Olympic Sports, and more for online media publications like Sportskeeda, EssentiallySports, and more. He is currently an MSc. in Sport Marketing student at Loughborough University, London.