The former president of Barcelona declared on Monday in the Prosecutor’s Office as other executives of the Barça club did before
“They are necessary and useful, they are used by all the clubs. They are reports on arbitration that reach the first team and subsidiary coaches, the delegates and the players themselves”
Josep Maria Bartomeu He attended the call of the Prosecutor’s Office on Monday for the payments of the Barcelona Football Club of 1.4 million between the years 2016 and 2018 to the company of the former vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA), José María Enríquez Negreirawhich has been opened an investigation at the request of the Tax agency. Other club executives such as Albert Soler and Òscar Grau did it before. Enríquez Negreira is a partner with his son Javier Enriquez Romero of the investigated company, Dasnil 95.
Bartomeu, as he explained to El Periódico de Catalunya, from the Prensa Ibérica group, defends the need to have the services provided by the son of Enríquez Negreira and that at the request of the executives of the Barcelona entity such as Pep Segura and Oscar Grau stopped paying in 2018 to save expenses. “They are necessary and useful, they are used by all the clubs. They are reports on arbitration that reach the first team and subsidiary coaches, the delegates, the players themselves… Enríquez Negreira’s son did them with absolute professionalism”. These services include videos and advice on whether a card can be appealed, on the creation of referee profiles or analysis of plays from the referee’s point of view.
When he decided to internalize this service, contracted in 2001 and for which several Barcelona presidents therefore paid, Bartomeu received calls from the son of the arbitration vice president and after him. That’s when he explains, he found out that Enríquez Negreira was a partner in the company. He understands the aesthetic problem that this situation generates, but He stresses that the referees “have never helped Barça. Rather the opposite”. He regrets that all this information is going to be exploited from Madrid and suspects an internal disagreement at Dasnil 95 as the origin of his fiscal problem.
Gaspart reaction
In 2004, Enríquez Negreira appointed his son as sole administrator of the company, who studied Administration and Management of technology companies, played in the lower categories of Barcelona and Espanyol, and later joined Sabadell, Sant Andreu, Hospitalet and even Valencia. There he created his own audiovisual production company dedicated exclusively to tactical and arbitration analysis and came to lead the audiovisual department of Valencia, becoming a technical assistant to Jorge Valdano, Claudio Rainieri and Luis Aragonéswith whom he ended up working in the Spanish National Team during the 2006 World Cup and Euro 2008. With some clubs, such as Barcelona, he helped mental coaching players, such as Girona.
Joan GaspartFor his part, he explained on the ‘Tot Costa’ program on Catalunya Ràdio that “in my time there were no reports on the referees, nor did they have to be done. Every week I sat next to Sanchez Arminio and never in my life have I spoken with a referee about what could help or hurt Barça”. Regarding the videos “I don’t remember having paid anyone to do it, the same has been done and the President hasn’t heard.”