The Barcelona Prosecutor’s Office filed a formal complaint at Barcelona’s No. 1 Investigation Court this Friday, alleging ongoing corruption and mismanagement by individuals linked to FC Barcelona. The case also includes a charge of deceit and targets the club as a legal entity, alongside former Barça president Josep Maria Bartomeu, ex-directors Oscar Grau and Albert Soler, and former refereeing official José María Enríquez Negreira. Sandro Rosell is named in the submission, described as someone who would issue directives during this period. The court involved is Education Court No. 1 in Barcelona, reflecting that Barça’s payments to Negreira during his tenure have not yet expired. In light of this, the scope of the investigation has expanded, according to sources cited by the newspaper. Other former presidents, such as Joan Gaspart and Joan Laporta, are expected to testify as witnesses in principle.
The complaint contends that Barça, through Rosell and Bartomeu, reached and maintained an covert verbal agreement with Negreira, who at the time served as vice-chairman of the Committee of Technical Arbitrators (CTA). The agreement is alleged to have included financial incentives in exchange for favorable referee decisions in matches and in the outcomes of competitions. It is outlined that the CTA appoints referees for official Spanish competitions at provincial and professional levels and participates in evaluating promotions and relegations, with Negreira allegedly involved in these processes and the selection of international referee candidates.
fake invoices
For this work, Negreira allegedly arranged payments through his companies by submitting invoices to FC Barcelona that purported to reflect advisory services or judgments that did not occur. The prosecution argues that it has not proven Negreira’s son, a former arbitration head, to be involved in the wider conspiracy. The complaint notes that the invoices submitted by Negreira’s firm were scrutinized by tax authorities and found to lack validity, even though the payments were completed. The authorities indicate that the invoices failed to meet the required standards of a legitimate advisory service.
FC Barcelona’s payments to Negreira, during his tenure as vice president of the CTA from 2001 to 2018, totaled more than 7.3 million euros according to the case record. The prosecution stresses that these payments were not authorized by the club’s charter nor approved by the general assembly, lacking a lawful basis. The document mentions that the investigation is limited to 2014 through 2018, a period when the board led by Bartomeu had supposedly ceased payments.
millions of euros
The complaint covers the period during which FC Barcelona continued to channel funds to the former arbitrator’s firms, reporting a total of about 2.9 million euros in payments that were withdrawn and redeemed in bearer checks. The majority of these withdrawals were made by individuals trusted by Negreira, and the final destination of these funds remains unclear. Negreira left the CTA’s vice presidency in May 2018, after which Barça stopped all payments. In February 2019, the former arbitration chief criticized the end of the relationship in a bureau fax addressed to the Barça presidency, calling for a fair settlement for both parties and warning of potential consequences for noncompliance.
The allegations describe conduct that could constitute corruption among individuals in the sports sector, with Negreira, Rosell, Bartomeu, Grau, Soler, and FC Barcelona named as defendants. The charge of unfair management is attributed to the former club president and the former managers, while the alleged falsehood is linked to Negreira, Grau, Soler, and Bartomeu.