The chaos surrounding Manchester City and their 115 charges is about to reach its pinnacle in the next few days, but – believe it or not – European football has just been hit by another huge bomb, massive, enormous, both in terms of size and its potential consequences.The renowned Spanish sports newspaper AS reports that Real Madrid have asked UEFA to strip Barcelona of the titles they won during the years in which the Catalan club paid €8.4m to former Spanish refereeing chief Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira – as UEFA formally opens a disciplinary case into the explosive Negreira affair!##LINKED_NEWS_28331##The dossier is enormous: 50,000 pages, thousands of documents, evidence, and statements submitted by Real Madrid as European football's governing body takes a closer look at what happened between 2001 and 2018.UEFA has now confirmed that its Ethics and Disciplinary Inspectors have received a "substantial" amount of documentation from Real Madrid concerning its ongoing investigation into Barcelona and Negreira, who was vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees.The central questions are what the Blaugrana's payments were intended to achieve, what the club was seeking in return for the refereeing reports and whether those payments had any influence on the competition.##LINKED_NEWS_68998##While Spanish sporting authorities consider the matter time-barred, UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin previously described the case as one of the most serious he had seen in football, stressing that there was no statute of limitations at UEFA level.For the past three and a half years, UEFA had largely waited for the Spanish judicial process to develop. Los Blancos' latest intervention has now changed the situation, with the documents submitted by the Spanish giants being examined by the inspector appointed to the case.The next stage will involve a detailed assessment of the evidence, gathering information and statements from those involved, and allowing Barcelona to present its defence.Friday, 21.45: (1.45) France (4.50) Italy (7.00)Real Madrid's demand is clear: the club wants Barcelona stripped of the titles it won during the period covered by the Negreira payments.UEFA regulations also allow the governing body to exclude a club from its competitions if it determines that the team attempted to manipulate the natural course of a competition.The timing is particularly striking. UEFA's renewed investigation comes as the Premier League's case against Manchester City over alleged financial breaches between 2009 and 2018 has also highlighted the potentially severe sporting consequences of financial and regulatory violations.##EDITORS_CHOICE##For now, however, no Barcelona titles have been stripped, and no such punishment has been imposed. UEFA has confirmed only that the latest Real Madrid evidence has been received and will form part of its ongoing examination.UEFA's short statement says: "The UEFA can confirm that it has received a substantial amount of documents from Real Madrid CF related to the ongoing investigation into FC Barcelona in the matter involving Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira."