On the “golden age” with Guardiola: “We were much superior and we did not depend on the referee”
BARCELONA, March 14 (EUROPA PRESS) –
Former FC Barcelona player Gerard Piqué assured this Tuesday that Barça “has not bought referees” and that he would put his hand on fire for it, and of the ‘Negreira case’ — whom he did not know and of which he knew nothing in his long period in the entity– lamented the smear campaign against Barça and, specifically, the doubts about the “golden age” of titles, in the era of Pep Guardiola or Luis Enrique Martínez, for example.
“Referees have not been bought and I would put my hand in the fire. I know the club, I know the things that are done well and those that are not done so well. But if you want to buy a referee, it is as easy as doing it in black with an envelope of money and give it to him, and it’s over”, Piqué pointed out in an interview in ‘El món a RAC1’ collected by Europa Press.
In this sense, he added that it would not be “logical” to want to buy José María Enríquez Negreira to control the arbitration body. “You don’t go to the CTA to pay a public salary, because it will end up being known, and to think that with that man you can condition 30 Primera referees. It doesn’t make any sense,” he said.
“From then on, we are totally used to conspiracies and campaigns. But as much as they want to dirty the name of Barça, that was a golden age in which we were far superior. Not only because of the titles won, but because of how. You can review matches, Leagues, Cups, everything. We were much superior and we did not depend on the referee, neither for better nor for worse”, he assured, defending the titles that Barça won with him.
As for the fact that Real Madrid is going to appear in the case, he saw it as understandable. “All the clubs had positioned themselves against, through LaLiga. Real Madrid was the only one that didn’t, I understand why not and why in the end they do, due to pressure from the fans. It’s more noise than anything else. I have I have a lot of confidence in my club and in the people who run it right now”, he assured.
On a personal level, he denied having known or knowing anything about Negreira. “Obviously, no, we don’t know anything. The reports are more for the coach and the ‘staff’. The players who have been there for years, you know how referees are. The coaches, especially the new ones, do need to know what Each referee wears a foot. I don’t know if that man’s job was that or not. I didn’t know him or his son,” he reiterated.