![]() Starting at the very beginning: why pay a former referee and vice-president of the CTA? In return for what? What did Barcelona get? What did they think they were getting? That’s the question, but there appear so many, all working towards that, all intertwined. He demanded over €200,000 in outstanding payments, invited the then president to reflect, noting that a scandal would not be good for the club and threatening to reveal all the “irregularities” he saw. Negreira wrote to Bartomeu telling him he took this as a personal insult, an indication that he no longer owed loyalty to the club or, he added, the men who had presided over it. Which is also the year Negreira left the CTA. Payments were managed via a company owned by a now deceased club director, subsequent reports revealed.īartomeu cut the payments in 2018 because of the club’s financial crisis, he said. Laporta didn’t speak again, even when Bartomeu said that Laporta had increased Negreira’s fee. At best, those men had inherited a relationship they did not terminate. The relationship goes back to at least 2001, taking in different presidents and regimes: Joan Gaspart, Joan Laporta, Sandro Rosell, and Josep Maria Bartomeu. More details followed beyond those initial three years (the only ones the tax office are investigating). The current referees’ head, Luis Medina Cantalejo, said he would put “both hands in the fire” to defend referees’ honesty and added no one really knew what Negreira did, that his role had not been especially relevant. They said referees sign a code of conduct and, while not illegal, working for a club while also holding a post in the CTA would certainly break it. The first thing the referees’ committee said in the statement was that Negreira had not been in the post since 2018, when there was a change at the federation, Luis Rubiales taking over as president. The impact was immense, many scrambling to escape the blast. That is to say, that everything was neutral,” the inspectors’ report said.īarcelona’s president, Joan Laporta, says their payments to a referees’ chief for consultancy were “very normal”. “FCB wanted to ensure that refereeing decisions were not taken against them. He said that he had never benefited Barcelona, nor been responsible for assigning them referees. Negreira told investigators he provided “verbal consultancy”. Negreira had been called to testify and could not provide evidence he had provided any service – although his son, a refereeing “coach” could, in the form of videos and written reports. The story was broken by Què t’hi jugues: SER Barcelona. The investigation has been under way since May. He also said: “It’s not chance that this comes out now, when Barça are doing well.” If that old line was as familiar as it was weak, Gerard Piqué wasn’t far behind, turning to the one about things coming out of Madrid. The tax office passed the details to state prosecutors, an investigation into corruption started on the grounds there was no evidence of the services mentioned on the invoices being rendered.īarcelona initially declined to comment but once the story was out the president, Joan Laporta, recorded a video confirming the payments while insisting that Negreira worked as an adviser, preparing reports and guiding players on refereeing issues – something Laporta described as “very normal”. Three payments of €532,728, €541,752 and €318,200 were revealed, made to a company owned by Negreira, who was a referee between 19, and then vice-president of the referees’ body from 1994 to 2018. It started accidentally, as these things tend to, with a tax inspection. In total, the Catalan referee José María Enríquez Negreira received €7m over 20 years. With every new revelation, with every new thing that was said – and not said – it got worse. That was just the start and it’s not finished yet. The story broke on the eve of the Europa League match against United: Barcelona had paid €1.4m to the vice-president of the Spanish referees’ committee, the CTA, between 20. Barcelona faced Manchester United and then Cádiz this past week they also faced something much more serious, as did the entire Spanish game. “I try to focus on the football, but this club has these things,” Xavi said. A lot more fun than where Barça actually found themselves, that’s for sure. A festival of parody and rebellion, serious about being silly – carnival was just beginning there, over 1,000km south-west of Catalonia, Europe’s most ancient city becoming its most enjoyable, too. ![]() We took a retreat in Cádiz.” Cádizian isolation, he called it, and it would be a good choice. ![]() ![]() “We talked about Cádiz, we watched a video on Cádiz, we did some Cádiz set plays, everything we did is Cádiz. “Today we talked about Cádiz,” said Xavi Hernández, Barcelona’s coach, and the only person there taking questions. ![]()
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