Courts reject Barça's request to be considered harmed party in referee payments case

The Catalan High Court has rejected FC Barcelona's request to be considered as a harmed party in the 'Negreira case.' 

Charges of continuous corruption involving the Catalan club and the former vice president of the referees' technical committee, José María Enríquez Negreira, are being investigated after it was revealed that Barça paid over €7 million to companies associated with Negreira between 2001 and 2018. 

The club presided by Joan Laporta had requested to the courts to also be considered as a party harmed by the events, but this has now been rejected. 

Barça asked to be a private prosecution considering that the club's assets had been fraudulently managed to make irregular payments, but both the prosecution and the investigating magistrate maintain that the alleged improper administration was carried out by the legal representatives of the entity who had the power to make decisions.

In addition, they consider the club's claim contradictory after Laporta said in a press conference on April 17 that the advisory services of Negreira were indeed provided and that the invoices were paid, indicating there was no property damage to the entity.

Laporta had previously suggested in a much-anticipated press conference to explain the payments that the club may be a "victim" of the events, if it were found that private third parties were to have taken advantage of paying Negreira's company in order to personally gain from the situation. 

The High Court of Catalonia previously accepted Real Madrid’s request to act as a private prosecutor harmed by the events.

Negreira payments case

On March 10, prosecutors accused FC Barcelona, Negreira, two former Barça presidents, Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu, and two former Barça directors, Òscar Grau and Albert Soler, of corruption.  

The letter submitted to court accused Barça of having "reached and maintained a strictly confidential verbal agreement with the accused Negreira, so that, in his capacity as vice president of the CTA and in exchange for money, he would carry out actions tending to favor FCB in the decision-making of the referees in matches that the club played, and thus in the results of competitions." 

The fact that the charges made are 'continuous,' as opposed to a one-off event, means that the potential penalties could be even larger. 

Current Barça president Joan Laporta has fervently denied the club have ever cheated: "Barça has never carried out any action with the objective or the intention of altering competitions or obtaining any competitive advantage." 

 

Barcelona have attempted to explain that the payments were for reports, sometimes delivered audiovisually and sometimes verbally, about the characteristics of referees in charge of their games, but the size of the payments involved continues to raise eyebrows.

Laporta also attacked the media's portrayal of the case: "This public lynching without trial that Barcelona is undergoing is unacceptable. They are playing with the good name of our club, the good name of the referees, and the credibility of football."