Barcelona host Real Madrid amid angst over referee payment scandal


La Liga’s giants were briefly on the same page but the case against Barça has injected a level of paranoia into this title race

The battle for the glorious past will be fought in the inglorious present. And it will be fought with heavily edited Twitter videos. Early last week Real Madrid TV released what can only be described as an attack video, aimed at the former La Liga referee José María Enriquez Negreira. If this seems a little extreme, it is worth noting this was in fact a follow-up, sequel to Real Madrid TV’s previous attack video aimed at referee Carlos Clos Gómez, now head of La Liga VAR.

There have been grander, starrier, more knife-edge meetings between Barcelona and Real Madrid. But not many have been more strangely pitched than Sunday night’s clásico at the Camp Nou, or more obviously fraught with angst, mudslinging and paranoia.

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