News Negreira and Barcelona case: what is it, who is Enríquez Negreira, how many years have they paid the arbitrator, what position did he hold in the commission, how much did they pay him and how is the investigation progressing?

February 2023: a new “bomb” explodes in Barcelona. According to the first information published by “Cadena Ser”, The Public Prosecution Service is investigating the payment of 1.4 million euros by the Blaugrana club to the former Vice-President of the Technical Commission of Referees, José María Enríquez Negreira, between 2016 and 2018, when he was still in office.

According to what “Cadena Ser” describes in its program “Què t’hi jugues”, the Barça club DASNIL 95 SL, a company in the name of Enríquez Negreira, paid the amounts of 532,728.02 euros in 2016 , 541,752 euros in 2017 and 318,200 euros in 2018, when payments stopped just as Enríquez Negreira left his position at the CTA.

THIS IS HOW THE “NEGREIRA CASE” BEGINS…

Who is Enríquez Negreira, former referee and vice president of the CTA who charged Barcelona for advisory services

News from Gipuzkoa

Born in Barcelona in 1945, José María Enríquez Negreira is a former Spanish referee associated with the Catalan Federation who directed professional football matches for more than ten years, specifically from 1975 to 1992. As a referee, he spent a total of 13 seasons in First Division, while in his last active year, in 1991–92, he directed Second Division matches.

He became vice-chairman of the Technical Committee of Referees

Enríquez Negreira became a very popular referee in the First Division. He refereed his first game at the age of 34 and made his debut very late, retiring at the age of 46. After retiring from his active career, in 1994 Negreira took the position of Vice President of the Technical Commission of Referees, a position he held until the end of the 2017–18 season.

HERE MORE INFORMATION ABOUT JOSÉ MARÍA ENRÍQUEZ NEGREIRA

What is the “Negreira case”

Football club Barcelona has made 33 payments to José María Enríquez Negreira for a total amount of 1,685,142 euros, according to “El Mundo”. The subscription documents were delivered to the Treasury between 2016 and 2018, just when Negreira was vice president of the technical committee of referees, according to the same newspaper.

“El Mundo” reported days later that José María Enríquez Negreira received 6,659,488 euros from Barça since 2001, which would imply the first phase at the head of Joan Laporta’s Blaugrana club, which made the payments to the then vice president of would have increased the CTA .

According to this information, both Joan Gaspart and later Laporta, Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu continued to pay Negreira.

RFEF statutes and possible sanctions Barcelona could incur

The statutes of the RFEF typify this kind of thing in Article 22: “Fundamental Rights and Duties of Members”.

In one of its sections, the RFEF specifies: Adhere to the principles of loyalty, integrity and sportsmanship in accordance with the principles of fair play, with an obligation to refrain from engaging in any activity that jeopardizes the integrity of the RFEF or its competitions, or discredit”.

And then expand: “Refrain from accepting or providing gifts, as well as from accepting or providing any benefit that could reasonably be considered excessive (…), including solicitations from third parties who have future vested interests in RFEF decisions”.

Sports discipline and in which case there may be a decline

In the chapter on possible sanctions, we should emphasize the text of the Royal Decree on Sports Discipline (1591/1992). Article 14, dedicated to “very serious infringements”, determines the penalty of demotion and loss of category, provided that sufficiently serious facts are proven.

HERE MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE POSSIBLE SANCTIONS

Enríquez Negreira is under investigation, not Barcelona

Will the RFEF intervene in the case? In principle not, unless requested to do so by the Ministry of Justice. For the time being, the case is in the hands of the Barcelona public prosecutor’s office. The only one under investigation is Mr. Eríques Negreira, after inspection by the tax authorities. For the time being, no investigation has been launched into FC Barcelona by the public prosecutor’s office and there are no indications that the club has committed an offence.

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The Technical Commission of Referees distances itself from Negreira and warns that its members should not engage in “conflicts of interest”

In a statement, the CTA is making itself available to law enforcement to cooperate with the investigation and deplores any “conduct” that is “susceptible to violating estate ethics.” In addition, the text clarifies that “andMr. Enríquez Negreira has not been part of any federative structure since the change of government following the 2018 elections.”

HERE, the full statement from the CTA