What did José María Enríquez Negreira think about arbitration, Barça, Madrid, and José Plaza years ago?
Quote after quote, the journalist pressed. You didn’t become a millionaire because you didn’t want to, he was told. Negreira answered with a dry laugh, You’ll hear that no one pushed me to chase easy money. And if such an offer had crossed my path, I would not reveal it anyway. It was July 1992 when Enríquez Negreira cut off his ponytail, ending a 26-year association with the Catalan football school as a referee. In that relaxed exchange with journalist Tomás Guasch, published by Mundo Deportivo, Negreira shared his thoughts on what should change in the arbitration world. The challenge, he said, is earning the public’s trust in the refereeing institution, which at the time was far from that goal. Still, he warned that the conversation would fill an entire paper explaining all the changes needed.
“Barça have been champions when they deserved it and had a great team. The rest is nonsense.”
The journalist persisted with a sardonic tone, asking whether Joan Gaspart, then vice president of FC Barcelona, would attend a hypothetical beatification of José Plaza, the former head of the umpires. Negreira replied with a wry edge that Plaza might already deserve some recognition on the spot. During the same interview, the question arose whether Plaza’s sports approach could be seen as trying to “kill” Barça. Negreira’s reply was direct: Barça had earned their titles when they had a strong squad, and to suggest otherwise was not accurate. The rest, he implied, was noise that did not reflect reality.
“Nobody suggested me to make easy money. And if I had come across that, I wouldn’t tell them.”
Looking back at his refereeing days with Real Madrid, Negreira recalled a moment in the Bernabéu locker room where an apology seemed expected after a tense exchange with the club’s captain. He remembered the encounter, noting that the captain had a difficult reputation, yet was a decent man. He also spoke about his own ambitions in football, describing how the sport could be lucrative and rewarding, a sentiment many players and officials shared. Yet he insisted firmly that there had never been a push or a proposal that would have coaxed him into taking money. If such a temptation had appeared, he would not have shared it, he asserted with a hint of humor in his voice.
The interview, read with the benefit of hindsight, carried an undercurrent. It suggested a shift in the sport’s leadership as a manager arrived with a vision of change, while a veteran referee looked on from the sidelines. The line about a great referee departing as a manager arrives captures the sense that times were changing, and not always in predictable ways.
Today, José María Enríquez Negreira stands at the center of a case that shook Spanish football. It emerged publicly that he had received payments totaling nearly 7 million euros from FC Barcelona over 18 years while serving on the Technical Committee of Referees. The public prosecutor’s office detailed, in its complaint, an arrangement in which Barça, through presidents Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu, allegedly reached a confidential oral agreement with Negreira. In his role as Vice President of the CTA, he would, in exchange for money, influence refereeing decisions in matches involving Barça, thereby impacting the outcomes of competitions. The case has cast a long shadow over the credibility of officiating and sparked debates about integrity, accountability, and the integrity of long-standing relationships in football governance.
The broader context is a sport where money, power, and influence converge in controversial ways. The story prompts questions about how refereeing decisions can affect high-stakes games, how organizations manage conflicts of interest, and what oversight exists to protect the fairness of competition. It also raises critical considerations about transparency, the role of leadership within football federations, and the mechanisms by which accountability is enforced when allegations surface about influence over game outcomes. As the narrative unfolds, it becomes clear that the implications extend beyond a single club or season, touching on the fundamentals of sport governance and the trust that fans, players, and clubs place in refereeing and administration. [Goal]