Barcelona have reportedly been charged by a Spanish Judge with suspected bribery, meaning the club could be banned from the UEFA Champions League if found guilty.
According to the Spanish publication El Debate, as reported by Sport Bible, Judge Joaquin Aguirre has accused the Blaugrana club of allegedly engaging in bribery over payments made to Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, a former vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA), over a 17-year period.
Between 2001 and 2018, including during the first presidency of the current leader Joan Laporta, Barca are reported to have paid €7.5 million (€7.9 million) to businesses owned by Negreira.
Barcelona and Laporta have both said they did nothing wrong in the situation.
According to Reuters, the Laliga giants claimed this was a normal practice among elite clubs when they stated in February that they paid an outside consultant who gave them “technical reports related to professional refereeing.”
El Debate also reported that along with Negreira and his son Javier Enriquez Romero, former Barça presidents Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell have also been indicted in the case.
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The five-time champions league winners were indicted in March by the prosecutor’s office for the province of Barcelona with “continued corruption between individuals in the sports field.”
In the words of prosecutors, Negreira and Rosell had a “strictly confidential verbal agreement” to “carry out actions aimed at favoring Barcelona in the decision-making of the referees in the matches played by the club. And thus in the results of the competitions”.
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