European giants have been caught after giving bribe to the referee

The Investigative Court No. 1 of Barcelona has accused Barcelona of “active bribery” in connection with the Negreira case.

In order to gain preferential treatment, it is believed that Barca bribed former referee chief Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira for information. This information allegedly included written reports and DVDs with in-depth analyses of officials’ behaviors.

Former presidents Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell earlier acknowledged paying Negreira for “technical advice to ensure that no contentious refereeing decisions went against Barcelona.”

The club has consistently denied allegations of possible match-fixing and bribery, and president Joan Laporta has insisted that the Negreira investigation is an attack on Barcelona.

“You have to be critical of yourself, but that trait was passed down to us. Receiving refereeing advice is not illegal. Apart from the fact that perhaps we didn’t appreciate what it meant when the son of a former referee gave us guidance, Barca has never purchased a referee.

While no arrests were made during the Thursday search by Spanish police on the RFEF as part of the investigation into Barcelona, they acknowledged that they were carrying out the judge Joaquin Aguirre’s instructions, who is handling the Negreira case.

Spanish courts have officially stated that Barcelona has been accused with “active bribery” in the wake of the raids. The club had been paying Negreira for referee information for 18 years, according to a local court document addressing the case brought against Barca.

“The Investigative Court No. 1 of Barcelona has agreed to attribute the crime of bribery to all the people investigated so far, including FC Barcelona,” said the statement.

“A continuing crime of active bribery is linked to the legal entity of FC Barcelona and the club directors under investigation.

One of the three vice presidents of the Technical Committee of Referees integrated within the Royal Spanish Football Federation was paid by FC Barcelona via intermediary firms. Uncontested and supported by evidence. Given that he served as the vice president of the CTA and performed official duties, including those pertaining to referee credentials and promotion and demotion, among other things, EN [Enriquez Negreira] possessed the status of public official for criminal purposes.

“The payment by FC Barcelona to EN or his son ER can be regarded as having been made based on the position held by the former, as the payments continued for roughly 18 years, increasing from the initial €70,000 to €700,000 per year; FC Barcelona ceased payment as soon as EN ceased serving as vice-president of the CTA.

Based on their tenure and annual growth, it follows logically that FC Barcelona’s payments suited the club’s interests. From this, it may also be inferred that the payments had the desired arbitration results for FC Barcelona and that there must have been discrimination against other teams, leading to systemic corruption in Spanish arbitration as a whole.

“FC Barcelona opted to part ways with EN when he was fired from his position as vice-president of the CTA in the middle of 2018. Given this, the latter wrote a menacing letter to the former president of FC Barcelona B warning, in essence, that if they didn’t keep paying, he would divulge a number of details that may significantly affect the team.

“From the latter, it can be inferred that EN knew that substantial illegal acts had been committed in FC Barcelona’s favor. Inferred from EN’s direct knowledge was either his involvement in the commission of the aforementioned acts in FC Barcelona’s favor or his intimate familiarity with those who would have done them. In other words, EN was somewhat aware of the illegality of its deeds and even of further deeds that had not yet been discovered.

Club manager Xavi Hernandez refused to comment on the probe when asked about it in a press conference shortly after the charge was announced, saying: “I don’t make remarks of this type. I don’t have much time, but I need it to see how the team is doing, what happened to us in Mallorca, the strategy, and Sevilla. I don’t think about these things.