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Barcelona could be facing federal prosecution as more details emerge of their payments to a former Vice President of the Spanish referees’ body
Barcelona may be on the verge of a first La Liga title since 2019 as well as a Copa del Rey final and are enjoying a good season, but matters off the pitch continue to threaten their on-pitch successes.
Barcelona swimming in a river of legal problems
After European exits severely hampered their ability to raise funds for next season, leading to La Liga President Javier Tebas threatening to stop them from signing players, the club now has to deal with possible criminal charges against both the establishment and its former president Jose Maria Bartomeu.
Barcelona have been rocked this season by documents coming to light showing that the Catalan club made payments to a company owned by former Vice-President of the Referees Committee Enriquez Negreira, that had only Negreira and his son as documented employees.
The payments to Negreira’s company Dansil 95 ran from 2001 until 2018 and amounted to nearly seven million euro.
Barcelona claim that the payments were made to Dansil 95 to help them with scouting reports for their youth teams and La Liga referees, but Spanish paper El Pais now claim that this explanation was deemed unsatisfactory by the Spanish Prosecutors’ office who will now proceed with criminal charges against Barcelona and Bartomeu.
Barcelona and Bartomeu to face criminal proceedings
Barcelona and Bartomeu are expected to face charges of ‘continuous corruption’ under Spanish law prohibiting corruption in business that includes fraud in sports.
While Bartomeu will be charged alongside the club, former presidents Joan Gaspart, Sandro Rosell and Joan Laporta will escape any litigation as their tenures were beyond the statute of limitations in the case since the law that Barcelona will be tried under only came into existence in 2010, after their tenures had ended.
Negreira will also face criminal charges as well and if found guilty, he and Bartomeu could face up to four years in prison as well as a fine according to the prescribed punishments for the crime they are being accused of.
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