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Rabat – The Spanish football club FC Barcelona was charged today with corruption over payments the club made to the former vice president of Spain’s refereeing technical committee.
Two of Barcelona’s former presidents, Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell, are facing the charges, in addition to the ex-refereeing chief Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira.
The case concerns alleged payments Barcelona made to Enriquez Negreira, who is the former refereeing technical committee vice-president, according to converging reports.
Reports indicate that the Spanish club made the payments in exchange for verbal advice on refereeing matters.
The news of the charges comes days after Barcelona denied any wrongdoing. President of the club, Joan Laporta, was initially adamant that his club never “bought referees.”
Yet reports have quoted many internal documents as suggesting that the club paid a cumulative $6.9 million between 2001 and 2018 to a refereeing firm.
“Let it be clear Barca have never bought referees and Barca have never had the intention of buying referees, absolutely never,” Laporta said on Tuesday.
In a statement quoted in the media, Barcelona’s public prosecutor’s office said that “FC Barcelona obtained and maintained a strictly confidential verbal agreement with Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira.”
The agreement meant that Negreira in “his capacity as vice-president of the Technical Arbitral Committee (CTA) and in exchange for money…carried out actions tending to benefit FC Barcelona in decisions by the referees.”
The investigation first began after Spain’s tax authorities reported irregularities in tax payments made by a company owned by Enriquez Negreira between 2016 and 2018.
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