Barcelona did not renounce Di Stefano... they were robbed
There is only one truth about the arrival of Alfredo Di Stefano to Spanish football, but as there were so many parties involved, there are several different interpretations. Among them, two have dominated public opinion: one coming from Madrid and the other born in Barcelona. However, it was not until the publication of several official documents from the era of Di Stefano's move by the journalist Xavier G. Luque in La Vanguardia that it has been proved that the version told by Barça is the only valid one.
However, from Madrid they have insisted that Barcelona gave up their rights to the player, even daring to consider it a 'resignation', as Marca suggested on Friday when they labelelled it one of the 10 worst decisions in the history of sport. It claimed the resignation of Di Stefano's rights had been voluntary and that the Francoist regime had nothing to do with him ending up dressed in the white of Real Madrid.
The reality is that Di Stefano left River Plate to play for Millonarios in Bogota. FIFA, though, did not recognise the Colombian league in an official manner and they ruled that the player could not be transferred and that he must return to River Plate on October 15, 1954. Barcelona finalised his signing with the Argentine side, while Madrid did the same with Millonarios. FIFA and the Spanish Federation considered the agreement between Los Blancos and the Colombians illegal. That is demonstrated by the documents, those published by Garcia Luque on February 25, 2013, in which the then president of the Spanish Federation, Sanco Davila, assures that "[Di Stefano's] signing for Real Madrid is waste paper."
Davila, who left his post months later, did not influence the operation hatched by the Francoist regime and Real Madrid, who manged to impose that Di Stefano would alternate between each club every two years. The agreement was signed by the presidents of Barça and Madrid, but it led to the resignation of the board at Barcelona and the transferring of all the player's rights to Real Madrid.
The resignation, therefore, was not only an act of dignity, but also one which was bound due to the terms cooked up by Franco and Real Madrid, which absolutely contradicted the rules of FIFA - and even those of the Spanish Federation.
