FC Barcelona Charged With Bribery For Referee Payments, Face UCL Ban

FC Barcelona have been charged with bribery for payments made to the former vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira according to El Debate, in developments that could eventually result in the club being banned from the Champions League.

Barca paid €7.5 million ($7.9 million) to companies owned by Negreira from 2001 to 2018. This takes in current president Joan Laporta’s first reign as the club’s leader, but Laporta has claimed on numerous occasions that the payments were made honestly for consultation work.

The Catalans were charged for “continued corruption between individuals in the sports field” by the Barcelona provincial prosecutor’s office in March which prompted UEFA
EFA
to open its own investigation.

In late July, the European football governing body revealed Barca were “provisionally admitted to take part” in its elite club competition, the Champions League, but made sure it was known that a “future decision on admission/exclusion” was still possible.

The start of September saw El Mundo reveal that, in a report requested by the court, Spain’s Civil Guard had concluded that referees under the watch of the CTA’s former president Victoriano Sanchez Arminio and Negreira weren’t always “unbiased”.

According to El Mundo, the Civil Guard found that Sanchez Arminio and Negreira ran an “irregular operation” while overseeing the committee, where decisions which “would not have always had impartial support” from a sporting perspective were made.

And now, at the end of the same month, another bombshell has been dropped with the Court of Instruction Number 1 deciding that the money paid to Negreira constitutes a crime.

As explained by Cadena SER, the parties involved have been notified by the judge presiding the case – Judge Joaquin Aguirre – that the original crime of “continued corruption between individuals in the sports field” is merely that.

Instead, the judge believes that the crime of bribery fits the case better, because Negreira “participated in the exercise of public functions” during the period of time that he received payments from Barca, which then ceased when he left his position.

Aguirre has pointed out that the payments were only made because of the position Negreira held in the body that regulates refereeing in Spanish football.

Because of this, Barca have been accused of bribery, “which occurs when an individual pays an official or public authority to obtain a favor in return”, alongside their former presidents Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell. Furthermore, Negreira and his son have also been charged by Aguirre.

In worrying additional developments for the club, the judge has pointed out in a court order that it would not even be necessary to prove that Barca “adulterated” competitions in Spain in a hypothetical trial because the crime of bribery is already consummated when an official is paid to do a favor regardless of whether that favor is done or not.

Above all, one of the main consequences of the change in charges is that if Barca are finally tried for the crime of bribery, the outcome of the trial will be decided by a jury of nine members of the public who will decide if the La Liga giants committed a crime or not.

All of this news will be of interest to UEFA, who as mentioned reserved the right to take future action if fresh developments in what is known as the ‘Caso Negreira’ in Spain arose.

Barca have already gotten their campaign in the 2023/2024 edition of the Champions League underway with a 5-0 win over Royal Antwerp, but they could theoretically be banned from participation for at least a year next season.