In the affair involving millions of euros in payments from FC Barcelona to a former referee official, the public prosecutor’s office filed a complaint with a court on Friday on suspicion of corruption. The club had paid monies to former vice-president of the CTA Referees Committee, José María Enríquez Negreira. Investigators concluded that the amounts served to favor Barca in referee decision-making. This was announced by a judicial spokeswoman.
Between 2001 and 2018, the Catalans paid more than €7.3m. The ad is directed against Enríquez Negreira, the club and its former presidents Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu and other ex-Barça officials.
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Barcelona President Laporta: Paid advisory services ‘very normal’
The affair hits the Catalan club in a sportingly successful phase. Barça currently lead LaLga by nine points from champions and arch-rivals Real Madrid. Both representatives of the club and Enríquez Negreira have admitted the business connections, but at the same time denied the allegation of corruption. Barça’s current club president, Joan Laporta, said weeks ago that the club had used advisory services. But that was “very normal in football at the big clubs,” he asserted.
Enríquez Negreira was a referee in the first division of Spain between 1977 and 1992 and then vice-president of the CTA between 1994 and 2018. In an interview with the broadcaster “Cadena Ser”, the 77-year-old emphasized that as CTA Vice President he had never given FC Barcelona preferential treatment in any decision or referee appointment. His company Dasniel 95 SL verbally advised the club on how the players should behave depending on the referee.
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