Barcelona president Joan Laporta has expressed his confidence that the club will not be sanctioned by UEFA and will not miss the Champions League after UEFA launched an investigation into the “Negreira Case,” related to club payments to a former refereeing official. Laporta has described the possibility of a sanction as unprecedented and said that UEFA will not join in a public lynching without a trial. He also stated that the club remains in contact with the governing body of European soccer and assured that UEFA will pronounce itself when the time comes for a judicial decision and that it will be proven that there is no crime.
On the other hand, the Spanish justice system is investigating the club and some of its directors for “corruption between private individuals in the sporting sphere,” “unfair administration,” and “falsification of commercial documents” for payments made by Barcelona to companies belonging to a former referee’s manager. The prosecution’s complaint targets Barcelona and former club officials, including Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu, as well as José MarÃa EnrÃquez Negreira, former vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA), and his company Dasnil 95. The prosecution accuses Barcelona of having reached a confidential agreement with Negreira, in exchange for money, to favor FCB in the referees’ decision-making in the matches played by the club and thus in the results of the competitions.
However, Laporta has assured that the club has not taken any action that has the ultimate aim or intention of altering the competition to gain any kind of sporting advantage. It is important to note that the case is still under investigation and that no final decisions have yet been made.