(Football news) FC Barcelona have been found guilty of paying Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira a reported total of 8.4m euros (£7.4m) between 2001 and 2018. A court indicted Barcelona, former club officials and Negreira for “corruption”, “breach of trust” and “false business records”. These lawsuits have been brought about by the Barcelona public prosecutor’s office and not only target the club but also former presidents Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell. La Liga chief executive Javier Tebas has said that current Barcelona president Joan Laporta should resign if he was unable to explain the payments.
A statement released by the prosecutors read “FC Barcelona obtained and maintained a strictly confidential verbal agreement with Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira so that, in his capacity as vice-president of the technical arbitral committee (CTA) and in exchange for money, the latter carries out actions tending to benefit FC Barcelona in decisions by the referees.” In response, Barcelona president Joan Laporta said “Let it be clear Barca have never bought referees and Barca have never had the intention of buying referees, absolutely never”.
The alleged payments were revealed last month by radio station Ser Catalunya and came to light following investigation by tax authorities into Negreira’s company Dasnil 95. Barcelona made payments to Dasnil 95 amounting to 1.4m euros (£1.2m) between 2016 and 2018 and paid Negreira 7m euros (£6.2m) from 2001 to 2018, which was also the year he left the referee’s committee. The payment to Dasnil 95 has already been acknowledged by Barcelona which has been described as “an external technical consultant with the aim of complementing the information required by the coaching staff”.
In the aftermath of these findings, 18 out of 20 La Liga clubs expressed “deep concern” over the situation while Barcelona president Joan Laporta said that an internal investigation will be launched over the payments. Club manager Xavi has denied that he knew anything about the payments by saying “I always wanted to win, but fairly. If I thought we were cheating I’d have gone home”.
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