FC Barcelona President Laporta Blasts Foes Like Real Madrid And La Liga Boss Tebas For Catalan Identity Attack

FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta has blasted the instigators of the ‘Caso Negreira’ (‘Negreira Case’) scandal for what he perceives to be an attack on Catalan identity. In a passionate speech, he criticized Real Madrid plus La Liga counterpart Javier Tebas by name.

Laporta was speaking at a special press conference held on Monday morning in Barca’s 1899 Auditorium at Camp Nou.

The club’s leader wanted to set the record straight on the case which has seen Barca charged for “continued corruption”. Once more, he denied that there was anything illegal in payments made to the Former Vice President of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira from 2001 to 2018 for consultation work.

In one part of his half-hour address before fielding questions from the press, Laporta claimed that “the instigators of this controversy want to control our club”.

“They want to redirect the case and damage the reputation of FC Barcelona. And, incidentally, attack one of the main identity institutions in Catalonia,” Laporta continued.

“Our legal department has filed the relevant legal actions to defend the good reputation of the club. And it will continue to do so. We reserve the [right to] claim compensation for damages, which can be quantified economically and reach [considerable] economic sums.

“Barca have not committed any crime,” Laporta stated. “The ‘Negreira case’ is not a crime of sports corruption. Services were provided, there were invoices, payments were recorded in the club’s ledgers and [were] passed the relevant tax reviews.

“There is a club that has appeared as a private accuser, Real Madrid. It is a club that has been favored by refereeing decisions historically. A club that has been considered the regime’s team. It should be remembered that, for seven decades, most of the presidents of the Referees Committee have been former members, former players or former directors of Real Madrid,” Laporta stressed.

“For 70 years, the people who were supposed to deliver justice on the pitch have been people associated with Real Madrid. For this club to claim that it feels wronged seems to me an exercise in unprecedented cynicism. I trust that this trial will unmask them and put them in their place.”

Later, when fielding questions from the media, Laporta said that fortunately there are only “some spheres of power, not all” that “cannot stand Barca expressing their Catalanism to the world”.

“Some people of certain strings have seen an opportunity to try to charge one of Catalonia’s most important elements of identity. But, as I said in relation to Real Madrid, I do not want to divert attention. The important thing is that Barca did not commit any crime.”

Before this, Laporta also took aim at an “irresponsible and unprofessional” Tebas who has previously suggested that Laporta must step down if he can’t explain the payments made to Negreira “well”.

“As the president of Barca, I demand the utmost responsibility from the institutions that govern Spanish, European and world football. Also from the media. We are risking the good name and credibility of the club, the refereeing collective and football,” Laporta highlighted.

“We are witnessing a Solomonic trial in which there are people who try to harm those who have not bowed to their requests and will. This is intolerable. I want to point out in particular the president of the league, Javier Tebas.

“With his constant demonstrations, he has fueled controversy and has provided false documentation to the Prosecutor’s Office,” Laporta said in a nod to a La Vanguardia report.

“I ask him to bind his verbal incontinence, because you doesn’t do the institution you represent any favors.”

“He is validating information that is false: he has gone so far as to say that there was no report. The president of the Federation (Luis Rubiales), for example, has not joined this lynching. Neither does the CSD
CSD
(Spain’s National Sport’s Council). I appreciate their positioning,” Laporta concluded on this.

Given their constant back-and-forths, Tebas is likely to reply to Laporta’s accusations in the coming hours.