Any notion of cooperation or shared understanding between Real Madrid and Barcelona now belongs firmly to the past. While the Catalan club enters a new election cycle, those at the Bernabéu are reaffirming the stance Florentino Pérez made clear at the Members’ Assembly: “We will take this all the way.”

What is unfolding marks the definitive collapse of any remaining cordiality between the two historic rivals. Real Madrid has no intention of limiting its response to the current legal proceedings. The club is preparing to escalate the conflict by pursuing significant financial compensation from Barcelona for the consequences of the payments made to José María Enríquez Negreira. Potential sporting sanctions are governed by Article 4.1 of UEFA’s regulations, and some clubs are already beginning to question whether enough has been done in light of the evidence presented so far.

The case file includes purchases of Aloe Vera, referee reports on matches and tournaments that had not yet taken place, boxes of alleged technical reports that were never delivered to coaching staff, and contradictory statements from Barcelona directors regarding their awareness of Negreira’s role as vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees. At the center of everything remains the €8.4 million paid by Barcelona to companies linked to Negreira.

With the existence of the payments now established, the unresolved issue is whether sporting corruption took place between 2001 and 2018. Real Madrid appears to be the only institution fully committed to determining whether those years involved something many suspect and others deny: the purchase of influence.

Earlier this year, Real Madrid succeeded in extending the investigation until March 1. That move underlined the club’s determination not to look away from what UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin described as “the most serious thing I have ever seen in football.” While LaLiga and the RFEF have played a minimal role in the proceedings, Real Madrid’s legal team has taken an increasingly aggressive approach, arguing that Spanish football had its identity manipulated and its competition distorted by inexplicable decisions.

On December 24, just before Christmas, it emerged that Real Madrid had formally requested a ten-day deadline to access audits, due diligence reports, invoices, and budgets linked to Barcelona’s finances between 2010 and 2021. The request covers 625 documents and includes payments to companies such as Dasnil 95, Nilda, Soccercam, Best Norton, Tresep, and Radamento, all connected to the scandal.

This step will not be the last. Real Madrid and Barcelona, Florentino Pérez and Joan Laporta, are returning to their natural state: treating each other not as rivals, but as adversaries. The Madrid board has been waiting for this moment, and it has arrived—while the investigation itself appears likely to extend well beyond March 1.

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