Barcelona will not face sporting sanctions over alleged referee scandal, Tebas confirms
Barcelona will not face sporting sanctions for payments allegedly made to a company owned by former referee Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, LaLiga president Javier Tebas has confirmed.
The Catalan giants are said to have paid Negreira’s company DASNIL 95 SL €1.4million between 2016 and 2018, with the claims being first revealed by broadcaster SER Catalunya earlier this week.
El Pais newspaper claimed that in exchange for payments, Barcelona received a written report and DVD rating from the referees ahead of the games.
Barcelona have strenuously denied wrongdoing, saying they had previously hired “an outside consultant” who provided videos of youth players from other teams along with “technical reports related to professional refereeing”, which is “a common practice among professional football clubs”. may be.
The Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) said on Thursday it had made a “request for information” from Barcelona and the Technical Referees Committee (CTA), of which Negreira had long been vice-president.
However, the statute of limitations in Spain only allows clubs to be fined within three years of offenses, meaning Barca won’t face a point deduction, although criminal action is not ruled out.
“It is evident that in 2018 and previous years the ‘compliance’ rules on monitoring conflicts of interest failed for both Barcelona and the refereeing committee,” Tebas said in a video message published on social media on Thursday.
“From what we see revealed in the media, they obviously didn’t work as those services should never have been provided. Neither the amounts of money nor the facts that were revealed.
“We have to clarify that from the start, we’ve already looked at it [sporting sanctions] – it is not possible to issue sports disciplinary sanctions because five years have already passed.
“The criminal justice system is another issue. Prosecutors are now investigating the incidents and whether there may have been an act of corruption between individuals in relation to match-fixing. Let’s see how this investigation ends.
“At LaLiga we will await and respect the investigation by the prosecutor and once that is complete we will see if they decide to lodge the appropriate complaint or claim with the appropriate courts. We will make decisions from there.”
Negreira was a referee in the Spanish top flight between 1977 and 1992 before taking up a position with the RFEF between 1994 and 2018.
Barca president Joan Laporta said it was ‘no coincidence’ that the allegations came to light as the Blaugrana are eight points clear at the top of LaLiga.