A court in Barcelona, Spain has accepted to hear the case involving alleged payments made by Barcelona football club to a company owned by a senior refereeing official in order to impact the final score of matches.
The regional court announced recently that it would probe Barcelona and two of the La Liga club’s former presidents, Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu, for sports corruption, unfair administration, and document falsification.
Following the filing of the complaint by prosecutors last week regarding alleged payments of more than 7.3 million euros to companies owned by Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira from 2001 to 2018, State Attorney General Alvaro Garcia Ortiz ordered on Tuesday that the case be transferred to the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office due to the high-profile nature of the allegations, which could encompass sizable bribery infractions.
The prosecutors’ complaint focuses on 2.9 million euros paid from 2014 to 2018 and alleges that Barcelona, with the help of former presidents Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu, reached a “confidential verbal agreement” with Negreira.
The Spanish government and Real Madrid football club have both stated that they will join the complaint as soon as the judge accepts it.
From 1993 to 2018, Negreira served as vice president of the Spanish Football Association’s refereeing committee under then-president Victoriano Sanchez Arminio.
Prosecutors claim that pursuant to a secret agreement and “in exchange for money, ” Negreira favored Barcelona “in the decisions taken by referees in the games played by the club and in the results of the competitions”.
A senior Barcelona official told Reuters on Friday the club had expected the prosecutors’ complaint and described it as “nothing more than an absolutely preliminary investigative hypothesis”.
The official said the club would fully cooperate with the investigation and it reiterated that they have never bought any referee nor have tried to influence any official’s decisions.
Barcelona had last month refuted wrongdoing, which stated that it had paid an external consultant who supplied it with technical reports related to professional refereeing. “It was a common practice among professional football clubs, it said.
“I am looking forward to confronting all the scoundrels who are tarnishing our shield,” Barcelona president Joan Laporta stated at an event held by the club.
The prosecutors’ complaint focuses on 2.9 million euros paid from 2014 to 2018 and alleges that Barcelona, with the help of former presidents Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu, reached a “confidential verbal agreement” with Negreira.
