Stephen Dunmoye
The judge overseeing ‘Caso Negreira’, as it is known in Spain, has decided to indict FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta for bribery, sports corruption, unfair administration and forgery.
‘Caso Negreira’ involves total payments of around $7.7 million (€7.3 million) which Barca made to the former Vice-President of the Technical Committee of Referees, Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, and his son over an 18-year period being investigated.
Barca were charged with “continued corruption in the sports field” in April as UEFA opened up their investigation in quick succession.
The European football governing body decided that the Catalans should be allowed to compete in the 2023/2024 edition of its elite competition the Champions League, but reserved the right to administer further punishment down the line if fresh evidence emerged.
In September, the judge overseeing the case, Judge Joaquin Aguirre, recommended that the charge of continued corruption in the sports field should be changed to one of bribery as Negreira was a public figure at the time.
This recommendation was made in a court order seen by El Periodico. Later, two former Barca presidents, Sandro Rossell and Josep Maria Bartomeu, plus a pair of ex-club officials, were charged with bribery, sports corruption, unfair administration and forgery in a commercial document.
According to El Periodico, the Catalan newspaper has had access to a court order which details how Aguirre has agreed to indict current Barca leader Joan Laporta for the same crimes after concluding that payments made to Negreira from 2008 to 2010 during Laporta’s first reign constitute “continued bribery”.
Aguirre has reportedly decided that not just Laporta but all members of his board from the mentioned time period played “an effective responsibility in making the decision to make the allegedly illicit payments” to Negreira and his son Javier.
Furthermore, it has been deemed that the 10-year statute of limitations has not expired because this should be counted from July 17, 2018 onwards when the last act of crime in the case was allegedly committed.
Laporta has repeatedly denied that Barca committed any wrongdoing and insists that the payments were made for honest consultation work.
He is yet to respond to the latest developments in the case, which come at the end of football’s international break and 10 days ahead of Barca hosting their bitter rivals Real Madrid in the latest La Liga installment of El Clasico.
