After Manchester City, now Barcelona is reportedly entangled in a shocking case. Spanish news website Cadena SER revealed that Barcelona paid former Spanish referee and former vice-president of the Spanish Referees Commission, Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, more than 1.3 million euros over three years. The case was published by Cardena SER on February 15 through their official Twitter, @La_SER.
Enriquez Negreira was a top level referee in Spain’s La Liga from 1977 to 1992. After retiring, he served as head of the Catalan Referees Council and then deputy of Victoriano Sanchez Arminio in the Spanish Referee Technical Commission (Comite Tecnico de Arbitros, CTA), from 1994 to May 2018.
During his time as deputy of the Referee Commission, Enriquez Negreira also received payments from Barcelona for at least three years (2016, 2017 and 2018), through his company, DASNIL 95 SL, for a total of 1,392,680 euros.
After inspection, DASNIL 95 SL issued invoices to Barcelona for 532,728.02 euros respectively in 2016, 541,752 euros in 2017 and 318,200 euros in 2018. In those years, Barcelona were being coached by Luis Enrique and Ernesto Valverde.
The type of service written on the invoice is “technical advice”, with a report from the Tax Agency stating as follows: “Barcelona wants to ensure that there are no controversial decisions from the referee, which have the potential to harm them.”
According to a source at the club, all invoices are stored as files and can be shown at any time in court. Until now, Albert Soler, former director of professional sports, and Oscar Grau, former CEO, have testified. According to a report from the Hacienda, or the Spanish Tax Office, there are no documents included that can prove that there is a connection between Barcelona and DASNIL 95 SL, despite the fact that a payment was made.
This case arose for the first time when the Spanish Tax Office suspected DASNIL 95 SL of trying to reduce the amount of tax to be paid. The tax was supposed to come from payments made by Barcelona. Barcelona’s board of directors in the previous period stated that the contract had started in 2009 (at the start Joan Laporta was president of the club) and then canceled by Josep Maria Bartomeu in 2018.
That year also saw the departure of Enriquez Negreira from his position on the Refereeing Commission. The last invoice issued by DASNIL 95 SL to Barcelona is dated 5 June 2018. According to the US website, the amount of payments made by Barcelona could have exceeded what was stated. El Confidential reported payments of 4.7 million euros since 2003. Then, El Pais even stated that payments had been made since 2001, with a total of 7 million euros.
Since this news was published by Cadena SER and then AS, testimonies have emerged, from former referees, journalists, and also former directors. All their suspicions were now confirmed. The funny thing is, the refereeing commission, which is related to the Spanish Football Federation, or Barcelona, admits that they are not aware of all the transactions.
Since 2003, Barcelona has had four presidents: Joan Laporta, Joan Maria Bartomeu, Sandro Rosell and Laporta again. Each new president would look over the finances of previous presidents, right down to the penny.
Roselle for example. He found that Laporta spent as much as 24.50 euros using a club credit card at the Lolita chicken shop in Sant Cugat, or 125 euros on cigars. then, how could a transaction of more than 1 million euros go unnoticed?
Then, will there be sanctions imposed on Barcelona? According to the president of La Liga, Javier Tebas, there are none, at least for football-related sanctions. After all, five years have passed since the case. According to Tebas, the sanction period will be imposed within three years. So, it’s expired what Barcelona did.
“It’s a different matter if it is related to crime. Now it is being examined whether match fixing has been carried out. Also, whether there is a role for Enriquez Negreira in determining who the referee will be in charge of matches carried out by Barcelona in the league,” Tebas said, as quoted from US.
ASL
