Ex referee reveals he was pressured by Real boss Florentino Perez

‘Pandora's box’ is open. From the moment it became known that Barcelona had paid millions to the former Vice President of the Refereeing Commission, Enriquez Negreira, a ‘witch hunt’ began. In this case – on corrupt judges. But as it usually happens, the media, some of them oriented towards Real, crossed the red line and provoked a response from the accused party. And that's how Real Madrid got involved in the whole story.

The Royal club reacted immediately after the first story was published, and announced the extraordinary meeting of club’s board of directors.

"Real Madrid expresses its deep concern about the seriousness of the facts and reiterates its full confidence in the action of justice and has agreed that, in defense of its legitimate interests, it will appear in the proceedings as soon as the judge opens it to the public", reads the statement after the meeting. And then the club’s television made a slam video of former La Liga referee Eduardo Iturralde Gonzalez (1995 - 2012) who is now an analyst for Cadena SER, and who recently refereeing in Negreira case.

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Iturralde was not happy with that video and decided to respond to Real and make accusations of his own.

“It is the modus operandi of Real Madrid TV. Since they are journalists, who calls me to a separate room? Investigate it. So you can see how certain people try to put pressure on. In a 6-1 match against Deportivo or something like that, the game ends, we left the field and the assistants go off with me. There is a person who puts me in a room and tells me: ‘I only ask you to whistle at me the same as Barca” revealed Gonzalez.

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The former referee then went on to explain what happened and revealed it was none other than Real’s president Florentino Perez.

“He’s from Real Madrid. I ask him to see if he’s making a joke and I tell him that the conversation is over. He wanted to put me alone in the room, but I told him no. After half an hour the Technical Committee already knew of Referees (CTA). I ​​brought it to their attention, it seemed very serious to me, but there it was. There was nothing. As those of Real Madrid TV are good journalists, let them investigate. I’m going to make their job easier: let them start from the top. It hasn’t happened to me more times, no president has put me in a separate room. I care about the facts. The one who put me in a separate room was Florentino Perez. I don’t have to hide. It happened. There is a CTA report, because I made it known. So they can see what it means to pressure. I’m not going to hide” said Gonzalez. So far, nobody from Real responded to his accusations.