The UEFA announced on Thursday the opening of an investigation regarding a "possible violation of the legal framework" by FC Barcelona in the arbitration scandal involving the Catalan club.
A Barcelona court is investigating the Catalan club and some of its officials for "corruption between individuals in the sports field," "misconduct in office," and "falsification of commercial documents" in the case of suspicious payments to José María Enríquez Negreira, a former high-ranking Spanish referee who has also been denounced.
The Spanish justice system has admitted the allegations by the Barcelona prosecutor’s office for the so-called 'Negreira case', which investigates alleged payments from Barcelona to companies owned by a former refereeing official.
Instruction Court No. 1 in Barcelona will investigate the complaints filed against Barcelona and former club officials, including former presidents Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu, according to a judicial ruling made public on Wednesday.
The complaint is also directed against José María Enríquez Negreira, former vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) and his company Dasnil 95, which would have received millions in payments for alleged referee reports.
This is the next step in the investigation of the case after the provincial prosecutor's office in Barcelona filed a lawsuit for the crimes of "corruption between individuals in the sports field," "misconduct in office," and "falsification of commercial documents."
The judge has combined the lawsuits filed by the public prosecutor’s office and referee Xavier Estrada Fernández in this case against Negreira.
According to the prosecutor's lawsuit, Negreira, who was vice president of the CTA between 1994 and 2018, received over 7.3 million euros ($7.7 million) from Barcelona through his companies between 2001 and 2018.
Barça ceased its payments in 2018, according to the prosecutor, due to Negreira's departure from the CTA when the organization was restructured with the arrival of Luis Rubiales as president of the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF).
-AFP