Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. Since 2015 he has been an English football correspondent for multiple Spanish media, such as Diario Sport and RAC1 radio station. When explaining the decision behind ending the payments in 2018, Bartomeu added: In order to reduce our expenses and save money, the sports department of the club notified me we would part ways with this company and start assuming this job internally.. Barcelona 's referee payment scandal has deepened as Football Leaks has listed details of amounts adding up to 6 MILLION paid to former official Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira. Barca risked losing Gavi for nothing. In September 1976, a referee, Antonio Camacho, publicly described what he saw as institutional bias against Barcelona when saying: While Jose Plaza stays as the chief of the referees association, Barcelona will never win a league title.. Seven million euros for consultancy? 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That was just the start and its not finished yet. This is how a day full of phone calls, statements and messages panned out in a city where no one involved at Barca seemed to be in a safe space. LISBON Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin said that Barcelonas refereeing scandal is one of the most serious incidents he has seen in football ever since he became involved with the sport. "The CTA wishes to make clear that Mr. Enriquez Negreira is not part of any federal body since the change in government that occurred after the 2018 elections," read a statement from Spain's Referee Technical Committee. All rights reserved. "I am looking forward to confronting all the scoundrels who are tarnishing our shield," Barcelona president Joan Laporta told an event held by the club with the captains of the different Barcelona teams on Monday. A festival of parody and rebellion, serious about being silly carnival was just beginning there, over 1,000km south-west of Catalonia, Europes most ancient city becoming its most enjoyable, too. "3. The Barcelona referee scandal - What does it mean for FC Barcelona Match status / kick off time. Tottenham Hotspur Identify This Barcelona Midfielder As A Target: Should Ange Snap Him Up? A report from the Que thi jugues show from the Spanish radio network Cadena SER broke the story and have detailed the latest updates. As far as I am informed, the situation is extremely serious. It sounds really bad: prosecutors are investigating payments totalling 1.4million (1.2m; $1.3m) the club made to a company owned by Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira who, at the time, was vice-president of Spanish footballs refereeing committee. Leaving aside for the moment questions of legal, economic or sporting punishment, there are the consequences this has for the clubs narrative about itself. Published by SPH Media Limited, Co. Regn. TheRoyal Spanish Football Federation were quick to provide a response to the latest allegations in the form of a statement on the official website. Barcelona | Football | The Guardian By registering, you agree to our T&C and Privacy Policy. He said that he had never benefited Barcelona, nor been responsible for assigning them referees. Additionally, the relationship with that supplier extended to technical reports related to professional refereeing in order to complement the information requested by the first and second team coaching staff. Spanish outlet Cadena Ser published a bombshell article on February 15 with a headline that summed up the story: "Prosecutors investigate the company of a former VP of referees who received consulting payments from Barcelona while in his post [as referee administrator].". ", MORE: Barcelona face Man United in the Europa League knockout playoffs. What did they think they were getting? He was a referee in La Liga between 1975 and 1992 before he then becamevice president. Gundogan talks Pedri, de Jong, Xavi, Guardiola, Champions League, Barcelona transfer, Barcelona return to routine following positive news on virus, Juventus making progress to sign Franck Kessie - report, Arsenal remain keen on signing 30m star as Arteta eyes 4th summer signing - report, The Old Lady Speaks Podcast, Episode 160: Juves U.S. tour gets underway sorta, Ilkay Gundogan names Barcelona star he is most looking forward to playing with. The pass had come from an 18-year-old called lvaro Rodrguez who had also provided the pass for Vincius Jniors second offside goal. Could the numbers on balance sheets not mean anything? 1. Speaking to The Athletic, he further confirmed the links between Barcelona and DASNIL 95. 202120748H. He has also worked for The Times. He will now move back to Spain, covering FC Barcelona for The Athletic. He did not, it seems, follow through. ", The club added that "the relationship with the external provider was expanded to include technical reports related to professional referees for the purpose of complementing the information requested by the coaching staff of the first team and reserve team. Recently breaking news came up on all sports tv screens: the Barcelona referee scandal. It is difficult to say at this point, but if the allegations were to be proven true then Barcelona could face a range of sanctions from points deductions to relegation itself. Enriquez Negreira was born in Barcelona and is a well-known figure in Spanish football. In mid-March more than a hundred European Union lawmakers called on Uefa to expel Belarus too. FC Barcelona referee payments scandal explained - Catalan News Get the latest transfer insights and analyses directly in your mailbox. If the club were victims, why did they let that happen? He resigned as Barca president back in 2020 and has not made any public address since. What does neutrality mean? Negreira claims that the money he received from Barcelona was for advisory work to help Blaugrana players understand how to behave with different referees. @Sergivalentin_ #rmlive, Los Blancos Live (@TheBlancosLive) February 15, 2023. He demanded over 200,000 in outstanding payments, invited the then president to reflect, noting that a scandal would not be good for the club and threatening to reveal all the irregularities he saw. The Spanish government and Real Madrid soccer club said they would join the complaint as soon as the judge took it on. Inside Barcelona's day of chaos as new scandal breaks - The Athletic In a statement in February, Barca denied any wrongdoing, saying the club had paid an external consultant who supplied them with technical reports related to professional refereeing, which they claimed was a common practice among professional football clubs. But a source at the body, who preferred to speak anonymously to protect their position, said on the subject of what action might be taken: Its out of our hands until the judicial process is over.. Even former executives who have been out of the club, some of them for more than four years, have had to declare in front of prosecutors, including Bartomeu. The prosecutors investigation has not yet been completed. The current referees head, Luis Medina Cantalejo, said he would put both hands in the fire to defend referees honesty and added no one really knew what Negreira did, that his role had not been especially relevant. N.B. Try a week on us. Barcelonas president, Joan Laporta, says their payments to a referees chief for consultancy were very normal. I cannot comment directly on this for two reasons, Ceferin told Slovenian newspaper Ekipa in an interview published on Monday. Barcelona paid approx 1.4 million euros to the Laliga referee committee between 2016 to 2018. . That FC Barcelona hired the services of an external technical consultant in the past, who supplied, in video format, technical reports referring to lower-category players in Spain for the Clubs technical secretariat. Barcelona faced Manchester United and then Cdiz this past week; they also faced something much more serious, as did the entire Spanish game. Now, even if they are not found guilty of anything, the details of this case, which are still emerging, must represent yet another damaging moral blow, striking once more to the very heart of the clubs identity.
