This is a failure of logic. Two things can be true at the same time. Eg Lance Armstrong was probably the best cyclist of his era, and he could have also been the biggest cycling cheat ever at the same time.
Spanish football authorities are having quite the day:- Sergio Canales banned for 4 matches in La Liga run-in for a red card from 5 months ago.- Sevilla must close sections of their stadium next month for chanting "Sergio Ramos, son of a b****" 6 YEARS AND 2 MONTHS AGO! https://t.co/E2fsTiHqwS— Colin Millar (@Millar_Colin) March 29, 2023 La Liga, truly stupefying levels of incompetence
Calling Spanish football a rigged operation is like putting up a huge warning sign towards all talent to tell them to not waste their time playing there. Also Florentino probably eyes those wonderful infrastructure deals that could come from a successful World Cup bid for his company so of course he won't support anything that brings the football or the federation into trouble. We have to be complete morons as a club to have so many politically influential people on our payroll allowing us to get "robbed" for almost two decades and nobody ever said anything or heard anything about it. Remember: Was before players were getting brought down for tax evasion the club knew this would happen. You play third division and you hear straight before you go out that the ref is shady, somebody that's buddy buddy with ministers and government officials hasn't heard anything about this for so long? I don't believe it.
I think all point to creating an positive influence towards Barca. That is undeniable. Personally I feel like Negreira overstated the amount of influence he had (some of the refs he promoted to the top of the food chain are despised by Barca fans and Media), but the attempt is clear, and the conflict of interest sincere. Why I think this Real Madrid TV thing blew up was because without anything even linking individuals with the scandal, the channel put together Highlight reels about referees basically alluding to match fixing which is a very very risky path to take if you're not ready to fight foe it in court. From what I've seen so far all they are looking in right now is who paid what to which account. Negreira has tax evasion issues to deal with. Barca is a different case. If we have proof of match fixing, abandon the league at once and request foreign officials to step in immediately.
As it pertains to La Liga matches .... The appointment of the referees will be the responsibility of the Commission made up of three members, one appointed by the Royal Federation, another by the League and the third by mutual agreement between both entities, with the member appointed by the RFEF holding the presidency If the accusation is of bribing actual referees or who appoints them, I'd say it's important to know what the actual process is. Their decision is probably aided by stats and reports as you mentioned. You could speculate that Negreira may have rigged that appointment system somehow, but to say or imply that picking refs for matches was part of his responsibility is not true according to available info so far.
If the argument is that there’s no direct proof of match fixing I think that’s probably right. But there’s a lot of smoke there and you can’t blame people for taking the circumstantial evidence to its logical conclusion. It’s hard to look at it any other way when you look at some of the numbers. I’m with @J-Mezzy on this. They either cheated and actually got a result here and there because of it (these games are often on a knife’s edge, so proving it is probably impossible, and influence can yield results indirectly — no match day ref need ever have been paid off for this to happen), or they at least tried to do that. I think the second is the mostly likely scenario: Negreira scams them by overstating his influence and then it snowballs/they feel they can’t back out and risk his wrath. It doesn’t really make much of a difference though in their level of culpability. I also expect absolute impunity, but that doesn’t change my opinion of that club or anyone involved.
🚨🏟 The Spanish Federation has decided to close a part of Sevilla's stadium after the insults Sergio Ramos received in 2017.Two sectors (600 seats) will stay closed for a game. @relevo pic.twitter.com/w6dbXO1wxT— Madrid Xtra (@MadridXtra) March 29, 2023 So Sevilla has to close stands for calling Ramos a son of a bitch 6 years ago. But nothing can be done for the racist abuse Vini gets each week?
https://apnews.com/article/barcelon...-prosecutors-1e4fb3fa4cbbb9a8d52fb4c226a13cad And then this puppy follows along to defend his boyhood club because he thinks he is being even keeled and fair.
One thing @4x4s is right to ask is how on earth our club was oblivious to all of this. That this went on completely undetected for so long is hard to believe. I imagine Flo and club knew/heard some things all along and decided for whatever reason it was best not to stir the pot.
They weren’t and they have always raised double standards through the press. Do you expect someone from the club to come out and accuse another club of fraud without proof? Who do you think we are, Barca??
Right. And that's a committee and not the sole decision of one person AFAIK. If it was Negreira's vote that was part of the process, please point to the source saying so. I have not seen one ... and it doesn't sound like you have any interest in finding out.
Messi scoring a hat trick is earning world praise against a nation that if you asked 100 people who they are, they wouldn’t be able to answer or point to them on a map. Yet Ronaldo scoring for fun in Saudi League is scoring v farmers. Unreal the PR against the midget
Except the charge against him is literally that he got paid for favorable actions including hiring referees and refereeing decisions. And.. 🚨💣 EXCLUSIVA | @abc_es desvela como Negreira cambiaba a su antojo las clasificaciones de los árbitros. pic.twitter.com/QTDUFIW8jH— Remontada Blanca (@BlancaRemontada) March 25, 2023 But go on. What’s your next theory?
Messi won the WC and it's fine. What I'll never understand is I am waiting for the inevitable "It's Florentino's fault" theory/excuse.
Again , assigning refs to matches was not part of his responsibility AFAIK . That info came out early when this thing broke out . I’d imagine if it was , with the amount scrutiny this has , Madrid people would have already pointed that out . This is not a theory . A theory is to day he was responsible since there is nowhere saying that . As for that picture of ref annotations , Can’t even understand what’s that supposed to be showing .
Lol being willfully blind is definitely a choice. It’s like saying CEO of a corporation accused of fraud against clients isn’t responsible because I don’t have direct proof that they orchestrated it even though I have proved money went directly into his account. You can’t argue with such sound logic.
Favorite part of this thread is this: "Everything anonymously... both the billing and the delivery of the reports" "Follow-up of arbitration decisions to the rival team RM" "You can also travel anonymously in Spain or abroad if required" Absolutely common protocol, nothing shady going on here.
There's no point in arguing this anymore. Nothing will be "decided" probably for a year or more, maybe ever and this is what I expect to play out. If and when the Barca and Cule apologists are proven wrong, they will feign ignorance - "I never said that, and if I did, that's not what I meant". Then shock if/when a post is used as proof that they did in fact 'say and mean that.' I can't believe that's what I meant, maybe I accidently hit the post reply button." Finally a plea to reasonableness, "well that was a long time ago and who would have thought this would ever actually happen. I say let bygones be bygones."