{"id":33799,"date":"2026-06-03T08:15:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T08:15:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/33799\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T08:15:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T08:15:05","slug":"i-would-love-to-see-barcelona-disappear-real-madrid-presidential-candidate-enrique-riquelme-wants-hansi-flicks-side-in-the-second-division","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/33799\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I would love to see Barcelona disappear\u2019 \u2013 Real Madrid presidential candidate Enrique Riquelme wants Hansi Flick\u2019s side \u2018in the Second Division\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Real Madrid<\/a> presidential hopeful Enrique Riquelme has taken aim at Barcelona<\/a> and says he would love to see the Catalan \u201cdisappear.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 37-year-old is going up against Florentino Perez<\/a> and has been doing the rounds recently, talking about a number of topics and unable to resist a few digs at La Liga\u2019s champions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to see Barcelona in the Second Division. I would love to. I wouldn\u2019t have any problems and I\u2019d be happy,\u201d he told The Wild Project.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it is not disrespectful. I would also like Barcelona to disappear. I wouldn\u2019t have any problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Riquelme has also spoken to Mundo Deportivo and followed in Perez\u2019s footsteps<\/a> by insisting Barca<\/a> have been stealing titles from Madrid.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s the Negreira case. And once you\u2019ve finished laughing at us about that, now, yes, the Negreira case. That needs to be tackled from the beginning. It\u2019s a disgrace, it\u2019s a fact, you\u2019ve robbed us,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there have clearly been payments to Negreira, for the referees, which have really favored Barcelona and harmed Real Madrid. But what\u2019s the deal? As long as this is happening because there\u2019s interest in the Super League, which in turn has a personal financial interest, there\u2019s no problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cBarcelona as a club was down and out, and Florentino P\u00e9rez asked for a strong Bar\u00e7a and helped you. And now you\u2019ve won two league titles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want a strong Real Madrid. I wouldn\u2019t have helped Barcelona; I would have gone all out against Negreira. These are things that worry me as a Madridista and a member, and clearly, that\u2019s what happened. I wish these elections had been held four years ago.\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n

His comments come after another trophyless season for Madrid, while Barcelona successfully retained their La Liga title and finished eight points clear of Los Blancos. The elections are due to be held on June 7th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Real Madrid presidential hopeful Enrique Riquelme has taken aim at Barcelona and says he would love to see…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[549,92,2233,16535,1693,2141,82,2582,16536,83,14724,16537,17],"class_list":["post-33799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barcelona","tag-barca","tag-barcelona","tag-enrique-riquelme","tag-europa-press","tag-florentino-perez","tag-getty-images","tag-madrid","tag-negreira","tag-paseo-de-la-castellana","tag-real-madrid","tag-riquelme","tag-second-division","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}