No sporting sanctions for Barca over refereeing chief payments: Tebas
La Liga president Javier Tebas said Thursday that no sporting sanctions can be imposed on Barcelona after it was revealed they made multiple payments to a former chief referee’s company.
A company owned by Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, former vice-president of the technical committee for refereeing, received payments totaling 1.4 million euros ($1.5 million) from Barcelona, which he says are for the verbal advice to the club on matters relating to referees.
Tebas said that despite breaching conflict of interest rules, Barcelona cannot be punished in a sporting sense, although they may still face a private lawsuit.
“We have to be clear from the start, we’ve already dealt with this – it’s not possible to impose sporting disciplinary sanctions because it’s already been five years,” Tebas said in a video released by La Liga on Thursday.
Sanctions are only possible within three years after the occurrence of the events.
Prosecutors confirmed to AFP that they were investigating the matter, but gave no further details.
The La Liga club said they had previously contracted with an “outside provider” for technical reports who advise the club on refereeing matters.
Tebas said Negreira shouldn’t have provided services to Barcelona for ethical reasons and the club shouldn’t have made any payments.
“(Punishment under) criminal jurisdiction is another issue,” Tebas added.
“Now the public prosecutor’s office is investigating the events and whether there is a possible corruption offense between individuals.”
The Spanish Football Federation said it had requested information from Barcelona and the Technical Committee for Referees (CTA) on the payments.
The investigation began after Spanish tax authorities found irregularities in tax payments made between 2016 and 2018 by the company Dasnil 95 – owned by Negreira, vice president of the CTA between 1994 and 2018.
Dasnil reportedly received payments from Barcelona 95 between those years.
According to Cadena Ser Radio, the last bill was issued in June 2018. After this, the CTA was restructured and Enriquez Negreira left the organization.
Josep Maria Bartomeu, Barca’s president at the time, told reporters the club decided to forego those services to cut costs.
Negreira – who refereed in La Liga between 1977 and 1992 – denied giving the club preferential treatment.