Barca‘s Win Against Chelsea In UCL “One Of The Biggest Robberies In Football” – Casillas Reveals

Iker Casillas, a former player for Real Madrid, labeled Barcelona’s 2009 victory over Chelsea in the Champions League “one of the biggest robberies in football.”

It has been revealed that the Liga heavyweights made a number of payments to Enriquez Negreira – the former vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees – between 2016 and 2018, with more than €1.4 million changing hands.

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Barca maintain that they broke no rules and were not seeking to gain an advantage with such dealings, but ex-Madrid goalkeeper Casillas is not convinced that favour among match officials was not being bought by Clasico giants from Camp Nou.

At the Kings League seven-a-side match, Casillas overheard former Barcelona defender Gerard Pique discussing the Negreira saga as follows: “I’ll tell you one thing: if we let the cat out of the bag, we look at UEFA and the Champions League and there Real Madrid’s [name] comes up…. all over the place.”

In response, World Cup champion Casillas brought up Barcelona’s infamous Champions League semi-final victory over Chelsea in 2008–09, in which Pep Guardiola’s team benefited from a number of dubious refereeing decisions to achieve a second-leg tie at Stamford Bridge and advance on away goals.

Casillas said: “What you guys have to do is to be quiet. That was one of the biggest robberies people have ever seen in football.”

Pique continued by claiming that a goal against Atletico Madrid that was incorrectly disallowed once prevented Barcelona from winning the La Liga; Casillas responded by pointing out that Real also suffered the consequences of some dubious rulings in critical league and cup matches.

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With both teams vying for additional success in Copa del Rey and European play, Barcelona presently leads Real by eight points in the 2022–23 title battle.