BARCELONA: Spanish prosecutors have leveled corruption charges against Barcelona Football Club over alleged payments made to a former vice president of Spain’s referees’ committee through a company owned by him.
According to the prosecution, the Catalan club transferred more than €7.3 million to Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, former referee and ex-vice president of the refereeing committee of the Spanish football federation between 1994 and 2018. The charges are also being faced by two former presidents of the club, Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell, as well as Enriquez Negreira himself. The prosecutors allege that Enriquez Negreira was paid for providing advice on referee-related matters to the club.
The Barcelona public prosecutor’s office has claimed that “FC Barcelona obtained and maintained a strictly confidential verbal agreement with Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira so that, in his capacity as vice-president of the Technical Arbitral Committee (CTA) and in exchange for money, the latter carries out actions tending to benefit FC Barcelona in decisions by the referees.”
The investigation was launched following an audit by Spain’s tax authorities that found discrepancies in tax payments made between 2016 and 2018 by the company Dasnil 95, which is owned by Enriquez Negreira.
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