Juan Martínez Munuera to referee Barcelona-Real Madrid Clásico at Camp Nou on 25 October

The appointment

The Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) confirmed on Saturday, 24 October that Juan Martínez Munuera will referee the Barcelona-Real Madrid Clásico at Spotify Camp Nou on Sunday, 25 October, with kick-off at 21:00. The match is the tenth matchday of LaLiga EA Sports. Martínez Munuera, 44, is a former police officer on leave from the force (policía en excedencia) who comes from Benidorm in Alicante and sits on the Valencian referees committee. He has been an international referee since 2015 and has officiated in Spain's top division since 2013. The 25 October fixture will be his fifth Clásico.

The officiating team

Javier Iglesias Villanueva will work as VAR, with José Antonio López Toca as his assistant. Diego Barbero and Miguel Martínez will be the assistant referees on the touchlines, and José Antonio Palomares will serve as fourth official. Javier Alberola Rojas, described as the other leading candidate for the assignment, will referee Real Sociedad against Levante instead.

Record in previous meetings

Martínez Munuera has refereed four Clásicos before this one, and Real Madrid won three of them. Real Madrid beat Barcelona 1-3 at Camp Nou in the 2020-21 league, while Barcelona won 4-0 at the Bernabéu in 2021-22, the only win for the Catalans in those four matches. Real Madrid also won 0-4 at Camp Nou in the second leg of the 2022-23 Copa del Rey semi-final and 4-1 in the 2023-24 Supercopa final in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where Araujo was sent off. Across his wider record, Real Madrid have won 65.9% of 41 precedents under him, while Barcelona have won 74.2% of the 31 matches he has refereed. Barcelona have also received two dismissals to Real Madrid's one under him, despite playing 10 fewer matches with him in charge.

The Negreira case

El Confidencial reports that Martínez Munuera is among the referees who allegedly paid for coaching services from the son of José María Enríquez Negreira, a former vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) from 1994 to 2018. The outlet says it had access in July 2023 to a statement by the referee's brother, Miguel Martínez Munuera, a linesman, who told Guardia Civil investigators that the sessions were meant to improve concentration and were held remotely. The brother said he did not know the cost of the sessions, and the payments were allegedly made by bank transfer at around 200 euros per session. The same statement says Negreira's son drove the referee team to hotels and accompanied them into the stadium on trips to Camp Nou between 2015 and 2023. Other referees who appeared in the proceedings include David Medié Jiménez, Javier Alberola Rojas and Santiago Jaime Latre. Martínez Munuera has always denied that Negreira had any influence over referees, saying:

“As far as I know, he had no influence over referees.”

Refereeing and the Mourinho era

ABC spoke with three retired referees about officiating Clásicos during José Mourinho's first spell at Real Madrid from 2010 to 2013, and one of them asked to stay anonymous. Iturralde González refereed the 5-0 Barcelona win in November 2010, Mourinho's first Clásico as Madrid coach, and recalled that Mourinho always came at referees head-on, while Pep Guardiola was more sly. Muñiz Fernández said that the coach's authority ended when the match began, and he summed up the principle this way:

“On the pitch, the referee is in charge.”

Muñiz Fernández also described protests from both benches, which he said had to be answered immediately when they went too far.