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La Liga boss Javier Tebas calls for the resignation of Barcelona president Joan Laporta if he does not explain the club’s corruption scandal.
The Catalan giants have been accused of paying more than £1m over three seasons to the former vice-president of LaLiga referees in a huge corruption scandal.
A report, first published on Cadena SER radio program that you playalleges that Barcelona paid José María Enríquez Negreira, through his company DASNIL 95, 1.4 million euros (£1.2 million) during the presidency of Josep Bartomeu.
Negreira, who would become the vice-president of the Referees Technical Committee after retiring, is alleged to have been paid €532,728 (£473,340) in 2016, €541,752 (£481,358) in 2017 and then another €318,200. €. (£282,915) in 2018.
The Prosecutor’s Office alleges that all these payments were made by Barcelona to DASNIL 95, with a report from the Tax Agency, which is investigating Negreira’s company, and seen by AS Diaryalleging that they wanted to ‘make sure that arbitration decisions were not made against, that is, ‘that everything was neutral’.
Barcelona have been accused of paying more than £1 million over three seasons to the former vice-president of LaLiga referees in a huge corruption scandal.
La Liga boss Javier Tebas (pictured) calls for the resignation of Barcelona president Joan Laporta
Tebas has since publicly insisted that Laporta must provide some answers to the club’s 33 payments to Negreira or resign from his position at the Spanish giants, if he doesn’t.
He told a Spanish media outlet sport.es: ‘Yeah [Laporta] doesn’t explain why it was paid, I think I would have to resign.’
The boss also speculated that the Barcelona scandal could be seen as worse than the financial irregularities of Serie A giants Juventus, which had them deducted 15 points for their actions.
For now I would say that Juventus is more serious for being sentenced, but I see the signs at Barça as more serious.
‘Here appears a vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees.’
Having already testified, Negreira and his son Javier Enríquez Romero have reportedly denied that Barcelona ever received preferential treatment from referees.
In his testimony, according to Cadena SER, Negreira assured that his alleged agreement with Barcelona was for him to recommend how his players should behave in matches with the referees.
It is claimed that he tailored his advice based on the referee assigned to him for upcoming matches.
That is, what they could and should not do depending on the referee designated for the matches.
One issue that has been raised is that the Tax Agency has attested that there is no documentation in its possession detailing the advisory relationship between Negreira and Barcelona.
The timing is disastrous for Barcelona, which has spent the last few years mired in controversy but came out fighting in its own statement on Wednesday.
‘Given the information broadcast today on the program What do you play from Ser CatalunyaFC Barcelona, aware of the facts being investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office in relation to payments made to external companies, wants to make it clear:
- That Barcelona hired the services of an external technical adviser in the past, who supplied, in video format, technical reports referring to lower-category players in Spain for the Club’s technical secretariat.
- Additionally, the relationship with the same external provider was extended with technical reports related to professional arbitration in order to complement the information required by the coaching staff of the first team and the subsidiary, a common practice in professional football clubs.
- Currently, this type of outsourced service falls to a professional assigned to the Soccer Area.
- Barcelona regrets that this information appears precisely at the best sporting moment of the season.
- Barcelona will take legal action against anyone who damages the Club’s image with possible insinuations against the entity’s reputation that may derive from this information.
Barcelona president Joan Laporta has vowed to defend the club’s name during the process.
Besides, the president Joan Laporta promised to “defend” the name of the club in the middle of the investigation in course.
The recent report that Barca paid a referee for an investigation? It is no coincidence that this information comes out now, when Barça is doing well,’ he said. We reserve all necessary actions to defend our club.
If found to have acted wrongfully, Barcelona, who are currently at loggerheads with LaLiga president Javier Tebas over his continued support for a European Super League, could face stiff sanctions.
Both Barcelona and Negreira deny having done anything wrong. The investigation continues.