Spain’s El Mundo newspaper revealed further evidence that Barcelona have been paying to receive a favorable decision from the referee in La Liga for a long time.
Barcelona just had a dramatic draw against MU in the Europa League. In La Liga, Xavi’s teachers and students are monopolizing the first place. Those are good signs on the pitch, but off the pitch, the Nou Camp team is constantly in trouble.
Spain’s El Mundo newspaper recently revealed the Barcelona scandal that may have bought a referee in La Liga for a long time. The documents discovered show that they paid up to 33 times to Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, former vice president of the La Liga arbitration panel through a company owned by Negreira between 2016 and 2018 with a total amount over 1.6 million euros.
Sources prove that Negreira’s company DASNIL 95 SL is entirely subsistence with money paid for by Barcelona because there is no real activity. Soon after, former Barcelona president Josep Bartomeu admitted this story had been going on since 2001 even before Laporta was president of the team for the first time. The total amount of Barcelona paid up to 4.7 million euros.
“Barcelona has been paying referees since 2001. Laporta found this out in 2003 and he continues to do it. In 2010, we continued to do that because that money helps the main team, the youth team.” According to Bartomeu, it was he who stopped paying referees in 2018 due to the club’s financial difficulties.
In the latest developments, El Mundo newspaper continues to publish new evidence. Two burofaxes (fax guaranteed) from two La Liga referees sent threats to Barcelona after Bartomeu stopped paying that they would announce a “major scandal by revealing irregularities in the decision in favor of Barcelona”. for the Barcelona of the referees in La Liga”.
Not only that, Barcelona must receive “adverse future” decisions. This threat is tantamount to asserting that the Catalan team has paid to “buy” favorable decisions from the referees for many years.
Currently, Barcelona have admitted to paying Negreira but it is for the purpose of “advising players on proper behavior with referees” and is ready to bring this case to light. However, these new evidence may cause the Nou Camp team to lose more than it will gain in court.