The latest news means that Barcelona could be kicked out of the Champions League.
Barcelona could be kicked out of the Champions League because of payments made to the former vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA), Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira.
This case has been going on all year, but the most recent news, according to El Debate, could lead to Barca being kicked out of the Champions League if UEFA thinks it’s best.
From 2001 to 2018, Barça is thought to have given €7.5 million ($7.9 million) to companies owned by Negreira. This includes the first time that the club’s current president, Joan Laporta, was in charge. Laporta has said many times that the payments were for honest consulting work.
The Catalans were charged with “continued corruption between individuals in the sports field” by the Barcelona provincial prosecutor’s office in March, which led UEFA to start its own investigation. The charge has now been changed to bribery because the judge thinks that the crime of bribery fits the case better because Negreira “participated in the exercise of public functions” during the time that he received payments from Barca, which stopped when he left.
A new worry for Barcelona is that a judge has said in a court order that it wouldn’t even be necessary to prove that Barca “adulterated” competitions in Spain in a hypothetical trial because bribery is already done when an official is paid to do a favor, whether that favor is done or not.
The Catalan club will have to go through a trial to prove they are innocent, but this new information could lead UEFA to ban them from European tournaments, which would be a financial disaster for Laporta and his board.
