Barcelona have been involved in numerous scandals and controversies in past years.
- Going to court on two separate occasions over lawsuits that arose from the signing of Neymar.
- Neymar himself suing Barcelona for unpaid bonuses, with the club then counter-suing for breach of contract.
- The previous board under Josep Maria Bartomeu’s presidency were said to have hired several companies and paid some journalists to discredit Barcelona players while favoring the board. Something which led to Bartomeu’s resignation.
However, the latest scandal could not only have serious consequences for Joan Laporta’s presidency, but the whole club as well. As reported by Cadena SER Catalunya, Barcelona paid a total of €1.4 million (£1.2m; $1.3m) to a company that belonged to then-referees committee vice president, José María Enríquez Negreira, between 2016 and 2018.
According to Negreira, who had already testified in front of prosecutors, he claims that his agreement with Barcelona was to recommend how their players should behave in games with particular referees. Barcelona immediately released a statement informing that the club had previously hired an external technical consultant who would supply them with technical reports on referees for the coaching staff to analyze. Something they claim is a common practice in the games.
The Controversy
It’s true that a lot of clubs tend to hire former referees as consultants, but there are some big differences with what Barcelona has been doing.
- Clubs that hire referees do it after they retire and are not involved in the Referees Association. In Barcelona’s case, Negreira was not only still involved, but he was also the Vice President of the Referee’s Committee. A position that is heavily involved in selecting referees for games and deciding in which division each referee officiates.
- Barcelona paid Negreira’s company €1.4 million (£1.2m; $1.3m) when former officials who get hired by clubs don’t even make a third of that amount for being consultants. Even if the Blaugranas say Negreira company also provided them with
technical reports on youth players in lower categories, that’s still a big amount they had to pay for consultancy work.
More Twists to the Story
Although the prosecutor’s office is only investigating the payments between 2016 and 2018, Barcelona’s involvement with Negreira goes back much further. According to former president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, he said that these payments had existed as early as 2003 and could go back as far as 2001 with total payments from the club reaching close to €7 million.
It’s also interesting that these payments to DASNIL 95 (Negreira’s company) stopped in 2018. While Bartomeu claims it was because of cost-cutting measures, that was also the year that Negreira left his position as Vice President of the Referees Association; a position he had held since 1994.
Along with this, DASNIL 95 never had more than two employees and it was Negreira’s son, Javier Enríquez Romero, who was mostly in charge of the company. It was also his son who was in charge of coaching the referees during that time and former referee, Juan Andujar Oliver, recently stated that Negreira’s son had been seen with referees before important games at Camp Nou. Additionally, it’s been reported that Javier Enríquez Romero was also the person who would take the referees from their hotels to Camp Nou and back.
While Barcelona claim that their involvement with DASNIL 95 was to receive technical reports on referees, things took yet another twist when former Barcelona and current Athletic Bilbao manager, Ernesto Valverde, was asked about this matter. Valverde, who was in charge of Barcelona in 2018 when the last payment to Negreira was made, said:
“At Barcelona, I didn’t even look at them, I didn’t even know they existed.”
This is an interesting statement taking into consideration that Barcelona was paying a hefty fee for a service that the manager didn’t pay much attention to.
What Next? Could Barcelona be Sanctioned?
In accordance with Spain’s Sports Law (Ley del Deporte), Spanish footballing authorities are prevented from taking action as the period in question happened outside the statute of limitations. As stated in Article 112, “very serious offenses shall prescribe after three years.”
Interestingly, Spain’s Sports Law was just changed in December 2022 and the General Director of Sports of the Higher Sports Council at that time was Albert Soler, who previously held a directors position at Barcelona between 2014 and 2021. However, Barcelona could still face sporting sanctions if found guilty on criminal charges and could even see UEFA and FIFA getting involved depending on the outcome of the investigation.
Suspicion continues to surround Barcelona
If referees were already under the microscope for every time they made a mistake that favored the Blaugranas, imagine now when it’s known that Barcelona were paying a company owned by the Vice President of the Referee’s Committee. The suspicion that has constantly surrounded Barcelona and the perception that they receive beneficial treatment will only increase and be magnified. It’s already well known that the Spanish Federation negotiated with a company owned by former Barcelona defender, Gerald Pique, to take the Spanish Super Cup to Saudi Arabia.
Along with the fact that a portion of Joan Laporta’s financial guarantee for him to return as Barcelona President in 2021 was financed by media mogul, Jaume Roures. Not only is Jaume Roures a Barcelona member, but he’s also the CEO of MediaPro who own media rights to LaLiga and is in charge of providing the footage for VAR reviews.
Another negative mark for Spanish Football
Regardless of what comes about, this is yet another negative mark on Spanish football. Who will take LaLiga seriously and want to be associated with it when there is no accountability or punishment? Other leagues might not be perfect, but at least they take these kinds of issues seriously. The Premier League, for example, charged Manchester City with more than 100 violations of its financial regulations.
Meanwhile in Italy, a country that’s always had a cloud around footballing scandals, relegated Juventus (the team with the most Serie A titles) to the Second Division in 2006 for the Calciopoli scandal and just recently were docked points for providing false financial accounts. Teams, such as Milan, Fiorentina, and Lazio, were also docked points for their involvement in match-fixing, and many important Italian figures were suspended.
In LaLiga, however, Barcelona can pay a company belonging to the Vice President of the Referees Committee and there are no sporting consequences. The president of the federation can have ongoing negotiations with a player currently partaking in the competition and he still remains in charge. Not to mention the countless allegations there have been of match-fixing involving several teams that have never been properly investigated. This scandal severely damages LaLiga’s credibility and will either take a while or is something that the league might never recover from.
Javier Martinez is a seasoned veteran of football coverage and an expert on Spanish football. He has been covering world football for more than seven years with bylines at outlets such as The 18 and The Real Champs.