Arbitration scandal | FC Barcelona has ‘never done anything to gain a sporting advantage’

(Madrid) FC Barcelona, ​​shaken for two months by an arbitration scandal, has “never done anything to obtain a sporting advantage”, assured Monday its president Joan Laporta, denouncing a “campaign of denigration” against of the Catalan club.

Barça never had “the end goal or the intention to distort the competition”, said the Catalan leader during a press conference devoted to the role of FC Barcelona in a case of payments to a former senior referee.

The club “did not have the ability to appoint referees” and therefore were unable to “modify sporting results”, Mr Laporta insisted.

FC Barcelona has been in turmoil since the revelation in early February by Spanish media of suspicious money payments made to companies owned by the former No.2 of Spanish arbitration, Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira.

These revelations led the Spanish courts to indict the Catalan club and its former presidents Josep Maria Bartomeu (2014-2020) and Sandro Rosell (2010-2014) in mid-March for “corruption between individuals in the sports sector”, “breach of trust and “false business records”.

According to the prosecution, the Catalan club paid more than 7.3 million euros ($10.7 million) to Mr. Negreira between 2001 and 2018, in exchange for advice on arbitration matters. These payments would have been interrupted when Mr. Negreira left his position in the Spanish Technical Arbitral Committee (CTA).

Barça “has entered into and maintained a strictly confidential verbal agreement” with Negreira “so that in his capacity as vice-president of the CTA and in exchange for money, he carries out actions tending to favor the FCB […] and therefore in the results of the competitions, “assured the prosecution in a court document.

Charges dismissed on Monday by Joan Laporta, for whom the prosecution “was not able to demonstrate that the payments made to the companies” owned by Mr. Negreira “could have influenced the referees or the result of any match whatsoever” .

“They couldn’t demonstrate it, because it wasn’t possible,” Barça president insisted, assuring that the services for which the club made payments were legal and documented. “There was no corruption offence,” he insisted.

The president of FC Barcelona had already assured Sunday at a meeting of Barça fan clubs that justice had “nothing” against Barça in this case.