On the morning of February 16, the Give Me Sport page, citing Cadena Ser, suddenly published allegations against the Barcelona club related to the act of bribing the referee.
According to the announcement of the Spanish Football Federation, the Catalan team paid 1.4 million euros to the company DASNIL 95 owned by Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira between 2016 and 2018. Analysis shows that the payments occurred during Josep Maria Bartomeu’s tenure as president of Barça.
However, according to consulted sources, this practice began two decades ago. Similar payments were made by the “different boards of directors” of the Barca club, from the presidents Joan Gaspart (2000-2003), to Joan Laporta, Sandro Rosell then Josep Maria Bartomeu .
It is known that Mr. Negreira was vice-chairman of the Technical Committee of Referees of the Spanish Football Federation from 1994 to 2018.
Specifically, Barca was accused of making three transfers to Mr. Jose Negreira’s side: 532,728 euros in 2016, 541,752 euros in 2017 and 318,200 euros in 2018. Then, when Mr. Negreira was no longer in office and The Camp Nou team also did not make any more transactions.
The news was announced immediately, causing an uproar in the Spanish sports village. When testifying before the Prosecutor’s Office, Mr. Negreira and his son denied that Barca had received many favorable decisions from referees.
They claim to be paid the amount for doing advice on how players should behave with referees, and give advice on what they can or cannot do depending on the position. Which talent is controlling a certain match?
However, Negreira is said to have been unable to produce any documents proving that he provided these types of services to Barcelona.
According to AS, the Ministry of Finance discovered an anomaly in the financial books of the company DASNIL 95. Therefore, they conducted a tax check and discovered payments from Barcelona to the company of the former vice president. Arbitration Technical Committee.
FC Barcelona also spoke about this incident. Accordingly, a spokesperson for Blaugrana also made firm commitments to its purity: “We would like to say that FC Barcelona previously hired the services of an external technical consultant who provided provide, in video format, technical reports referring to players in Spain’s lower divisions to the club’s specialized body, the secretariat.
In addition, our relationship with the same external supplier has been extended with technical reports relating to professional referees to supplement information required by first team coaching and the public. subsidiary – Common practice in professional football clubs”.
Before this allegation, Barca president Joan Laporta said: “It is not a coincidence that this kind of information appears when Barcelona are playing well. We will take legal action against those who are playing. trying to tarnish the image of the club”.
The Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) did not confirm the existence of payments between Barcelona and Negreira. In a statement released via the RFEF’s Twitter channel, the Arbitration Technical Committee reiterated that Negreira was “not a member of the federation” and dismissed “practices that may violate the ethics of the referees”. “.
Currently, La Liga’s investigative agency is continuing to investigate and clarify the above allegations. According to Forbes, if Barcelona really has the act of “faking” money for the referee for profit, the penalty for them will be relegation from the top Spanish league.