Barcelona managed to distract attention from the ‘Negreira Case’ on Sunday night, although not in the fashion they might have hoped. Their 1-0 defeat to Almeria was headline news, but it did not stop Almeria manager Rubi being asked about the scandal, with interesting results.
Rubi masterminded their victory, which moves Almeria outside of the relegation zone, and brings up just their second win of 2023. The Catalan manager of course was part of the Barcelona coaching staff in 2013-14 under Gerardo Martino, although he has since gone on to manage Espanyol and Real Betis before Almeria.
“We lost the title due to a legal goal disallowed by Messi. The referees do their best, one hundred percent, and there is no such thing as winning or losing by the referees,” Rubi told Cadena SER (via Sport), commenting on his time at Camp Nou.
However he did admit that he had no knowledge of the reports on referees that Enriquez Negreira supposedly carried out. Yet his following remarks raised plenty of eyebrows too.
“I didn’t have any knowledge of them. In one way or another, all the teams try to get closer to the group of referees as it is. Some have a delegate who is a friend of… Others use… Let’s not move into demagogy, they all try to have empathy for their club and whoever says no… Everyone wants to get closer to the referees.”
Certianly it feels as if there will be a before and an after the Negreira case, which could mark Spanish football for the coming decade. The results of the various investigations are eagerly awaited.
Yeah, but some clubs pay them 1 mil per day, others dont.