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that was sick
Barcelona and the referees: a scandal and five mysteries
The impact of the news we brought to you, initially released by Cadena SER, with the contribution of documentation proving that FC Barcelona paid almost 1.4 million euros (c. $1.5m) to the company DASNIL 95 SL during the years 2016, 2017, and 2018, a company whose sole shareholder was José María Enríquez Negreira, a former referee and then vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees, has turned Spanish football upside down.
Beyond the legality of the contracts and the exorbitant market price paid for “technical advice”, the problem is that the image of Barcelona has been called into question once again and neither the club nor the referees committee has been able to give a coherent explanation. There are still many mysteries to be solved.
Five big questions behind the Barcelona-Negreira scandal
1. When did FC Barcelona’s payments to DASNIL 95 SL begin?
The great mystery of this mess is knowing when this commercial relationship with the referee vice president’s company began. Let’s start at the end.
It is known that the relationship ended in May 2018, and the last invoice was issued in June of that year. This is certified by the Tax Agency and by Josep Maria Bartomeu himself, who has admitted to this newspaper that in 2018, in the face of the economic crisis caused by the pandemic, he decided to cut costs in all areas of the club.
One of those canceled in the football area was the one that referred to payments for technical advice. Coincidentally, at that time Enríquez Negreira stopped being vice president of the CTA. Bartomeu has also made it clear that these contracts were already in place in 2003 when Laporta’s first board entered. In other words, it would go back to the time of Joan Gaspart, who insists that he does not “know” of having hired those services.
Why was Barça’s referee advice payment so disproportionate?
Through the documentation in the possession of this newspaper, the Tax Agency specifies that in 2016, DASNIL 95 received €532,728.02 for consultation, a figure that increased the following year to €541,752 and then sharply decreased in 2018 to €318,200. This averages out to €464,226 per year. The salary of the Prime Minister of Spain, as a reference, is €90,000.
This newspaper consulted with various LaLiga clubs, and all sports officials who admit to having referee analysts on their staff (always retired referees, not CTA officials) consider that amount to be exorbitant. Furthermore, FC Barcelona itself admits that its current referee analyst, who is integrated into the sports department, Ramon Segura, earns €25,000 per year for providing reports for the first team and the reserve team.
Could criminal charges be brought against FC Barcelona?
Reports revealed yesterday that the amounts paid during the years not investigated by the Tax Agency could be astronomical. In the morning, El Confidencial reported an amount of €4.7 million since 2003. But in the afternoon, El País added that the billed amount since 2001 could be €7 million.
If seven million euros were paid for non-existent services, a crime of breach of trust may have been committed, which is punishable by up to three years in prison. The Prosecutor’s Office will have to decide whether to close the case or see indications of a crime and file a complaint.
Can Barcelona be sanctioned by LaLiga?
Many offenses have prescribed in terms of sports, but criminal cases are another matter. In fact, both FC Barcelona and La Liga consider that, if nothing more comes to light, the club may have acted questionably in its methods, but it was Enriquez Negreira who committed fraud, and he has already been fined by the tax authorities.
How did FC Barcelona hide the referee payments for so long?
Since the news was broken by SER and AS, testimonies have emerged (from former referees, journalists, and former directors) stating that their suspicions have now been confirmed. But it is true that neither the control mechanisms of the refereeing committee, which aligns with the Spanish Federation, nor those of FC Barcelona detected anything. Both parts deserve an explanation because that is a mystery.
Since 2003, Barcelona has had four presidents (Laporta, Bartomeu, Rosell, and Laporta again) who, upon taking office, first examined the management of their predecessors down to the last cent. Sandro Rosell discovered that Joan Laporta had spent €24.50 with the club card at the Lolita poultry shop in Sant Cugat, or €128 on cigars at a tobacco shop. How was a million-dollar contract like that of DASNIL 95 overlooked?
Every word Josep Bartomeu said to ABC: “I cut off Negreira’s tap; Laporta quadrupled it”
Josep María Bartomeu, president of Barcelona between 2014 and 2020, verbally attacked Joan Laporta, the current president (who also held the position between 2003 and 2010), in an interview with ABC regarding the Barçagate scandal.
Cadena SER revealed that recurring payments from FC Barcelona are visible over decades to José María Enríquez Negreira, vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees until 2018. Below are his statements to ABC; the information also refers to the latest news published by El Mundo, which includes a burofax in which Enríquez Negreira requested a face-to-face with Bartomeu and threatened him with the leak of information.
Barcelona's on-field woes continue as they failed to beat Manchester United in the Europa League.Joan M. BascuDiarioAS
Being calm in the situation: “I am very calm because I was the one who cut off this service. I have no relationship with Mr. Enríquez Negreira and I have never met him. We would have met once in the Federation, but the only thing we would have done would be say hello. I never met with him, except that for this gentleman, meeting in a corridor means having a meeting.”
On the news of the threatening burofax: “I remember it came to me, but I didn’t pay any attention to it. I immediately referred it to the club’s legal services and it was never heard from again. I don’t know what they did because I ignored the issue. And evidently, I never met Mr. Negreira.
Negreira’s reaction after the end of the relationship with FC Barcelona: “This burofax is from 2019, but in March and April 2018, when we ended the relationship that Barça had with the company. He called telling me that we were playing with his family’s money. The club did not play with anyone’s money, it simply stopped having the services of his son, who was the one who made the reports because it was decided that from then on an internal department of the club would do the job. And I didn’t talk to him anymore or have any more news until the burofax arrived. When the whole thing about the call went away, his son told us that nothing was wrong and that we should not pay attention to him.”
The reasons for cancelling the service: “In 2018 a period of cuts began to clean up the club’s economy. Pep Segura, then general manager of club football, and Oscar Grau, general manager, told me that this service cost a lot of money and it was decided that we should cancel it.”
Bartomeu’s relationship with Javier Enríquez, son of Enríquez Negreira: “I didn’t know who Javier Enríquez was until one day he was introduced to me in the box at the Camp Nou, but I didn’t know he was the son of the vice president of the CTA. It was 2015 and they only told me that he was the person who made the reports, I greeted him and told him that the managers are very happy with his work. And that’s it”.