FC Barcelona Made 33 Payments To Guarantee ‘Refereeing Decisions Weren’t Made Against Them’

FC Barcelona made 33 payments totaling €1,685,142.80 ($1.8mn) to the Technical Committee of Referees’ Former Vice President according to documents obtained by the Spanish media, for what the national Tax Agency says was to “make sure that refereeing decisions were not made against them”.

Shockwaves were sent through the footballing world on Wednesday afternoon when Catalan radio program Que t’hi jugues claimed that Barca had paid Former Vice President of the Technical Committee of Referees, Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, €1.4mn ($1.5 million) from 2016 to 2018 through his Dasnil 95 company.

Approaching 11pm local time, another bombshell was dropped when El Mundo published a report claiming to have had exclusive access to FC Barcelona’s invoices. The newspaper says that there were 33 payments made to Dasnil 95 over the mentioned timeframe, which totaled around $1.8mn.

These invoices were submitted to the Spanish Tax Agency by the club in 2021 and always had the same two concepts for payment. They were “preparation and sending of technical videos to the club” or “technical video advice”, with the lowest amount €30,250 ($32,300) and the largest €90,750 ($97,000).

But as detailed in El Mundo’s report, the Tax Agency has maintained that the payments to Dasnil 95 were made as Barca “wanted to make sure that refereeing decisions were not made against them, that is to say, that everything was neutral”.

The payments ended when Negreira was no longer the Committee’s Vice President in 2018. Negreira, his son, and the club deny any wrongdoing.

In a statement released swiftly after Que t’hi jugues revealed the news, Barca wanted to make it clear that it 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 Club’s technical secretariat.”

“Additionally, the relationship with the external provider itself was extended with technical reports related to professional arbitration in order to complement the information required by the coaching staff of the first team and the reserves, a common practice in professional football clubs.”

“Currently, this type of outsourced services falls to a professional assigned to the Soccer Area,” the club continued, saying it regretted that this information “appears precisely at the best sporting moment of this season”.

Close to midnight in Spain, AS relayed quotes from former referee Juan Andujar Oliver that had been made on the Onda Cero radio station.

Oliver alleged that Negreira’s son was seen with referees before important matches were played at Camp Nou and acted as a psychologist to them.

“In important Barcelona matches in their stadium, the son of Enrique Negreira, who was also involved with the Technical Committee, called the referees to tell them which hotel he was in and told them that he was taking them to the ground,” Oliver claimed.

Four hours before this, though, the same Madrid-based sports publication revealed that the Royal Spanish Football Federation’s (RFEF) Integrity department had been studying the case and wrote that it seemed “difficult” disciplinary sanctions would be forthcoming for Barca.

That is if it cannot be demonstrated with concrete evidence that Barca benefitted from refereeing help, however, and should they be found guilty of this, Article 75 of RFEF’s Disciplinary Code should enter into play.

If match fixing or agreement on the results of matches is uncovered, it is considered a “very serious infraction” with sanctions that range from two to five years disqualification for the guilty parties, a reduction of six points to the clubs involved and potential relegation.

At the time of writing, Barca are yet to respond to the latest revelations from El Mundo.