Nice.
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Nice to have him back! He adds a lot of pace, skill and also can play in different positions. We missed him for sure.
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It will take some time for Tecatito to get back in form, but itâll be awesome when he does.
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Found some clarity here, or at least the facts, which are still unclear in terms of ultimate meaning, but at least starting to have a better sense of whatâs in question and why it looks so shady.
Hereâs an article explaining the gist, and it ends with a link to El Mundo who seems to be the one uncovering the dirty laundry in this case:
El Mundo: Negreira reclamĂł dinero al Barça por âtantos años de favores y confidenciasâ
Sadly much of the El Mundo coverage is paywalled, hence my need to share an article from MARCA, who I generally distrust as an extension of the Real Madrid communications/PR/propaganda apparatus.
In any case, I wouldnât be surprised if Barca gets away with this, but maybe, and this is a big maybe, I think the fact that this is out there means that perhaps they got deep enough into debt with the Mafia that runs this stuff, that they had no choice but let it go public rather than find a way to pay. Seems unlikely, but maybe they knew they wouldnât really get punished so they figured public shame could be passed off at jealous rivals and would cost less than the million plus in back payments they owed.
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And finally, and this is speculative, Iâm sort of left wondering whether this wasnât mostly just a shakedown from Negreira⊠In other words, the business relationship had ended but Negreira and pals keep coming back for more money, and at some point Barca gets tired of paying the hush money for services rendered ten or twenty years ago and decided they just need to pull off the band aid⊠What do others think?
Anybody with any knowledge of the referee consulting industry or the legal implications?
Anyone have a perfectly innocuous explanation that makes this all look innocent? e.g. totally legit consulting with being misconstrued as corruption?
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There is no smoking gun yet but it doesnât matter, itâs just not done that a club does business with the vice president of the referees, whether thereâs proven bribery or not. I think this might end up with Barcelona relegated by FIFA, with la liga sitting on their hands.
Whatâs more informative is that certain other clubs have remained stum.
It was a shakedown in the end, perhaps Negreira was cashing in without actually doing the business of bribing refs and Barcelona realised after paying âŹ8m over the years, and when they finished their relationship Negreira tried to bribe them. He is a high category bullshitter apparently.
The smoking gun could make an appearance at some stage.
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Ehem, ehem, Real MadridâŠonly club with no statement (outside Barca, of course).
Yeah, I like they way you lay it out, Tim. You donât need a smoking gun to say âWTF, even if thereâs no law saying you shouldnât be paying the head of the referees, any idiot knows that teams shouldnât be paying the refs, period.â
Hopefully FIFA uses the leverage that LaLiga is not interested in exerting.
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Real Madrid probably doing some creative accounting currently.
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Six weeks from now: âReal Madrid condemns all forms of corruption in football.â(now that we made sure our cover up is solid)
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Ho ho the mighty have fallen. :poop: 2-0 down to Elche at half time.
That turned around quick. I am still struggling to understand the rules around hand-ball though. Why wasnât Elche given the penalty from a quite obvious hand-ball in the penalty area? I think the argument would be that it hit his body first and then his hand. But the same thing then happened when Elche was given a straight redâŠ
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and then againâŠand then again!
La Liga refs are ridiculous. That last hand ball was dumb, playerâs arm was in natural position and he wasnât even looking at the ball.
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Elche three red cards. Bloody hell!
one was to a bench player so really only down to 9.
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All three of those handballs against Elche were bullshit.
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Cheating barstewards
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I couldnât figure out where the foul happened. That ref was terrible and you could see him favoring :poop:. Carvalho pulled a damn playerâs shorts almost off and didnât receive a card when Elche was attacking late in the second half.
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Getafe beating Girona 3-1 at the moment. Everyone is beating everyone else and that is the danger for us at the moment. We canât rely on anyone to do us any favours.
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True point. Itâs going to be very tight right until the end of the season now.
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