BarcelonaAn entire generation of Barça leaders (2003-2023) is involved in an arbitration plot that has generated a scandal of enormous proportions and that was born at the end of the 90s, when Josep Lluís Núñez and Joan Gaspart still ruled the Camp Nou. An inspection by the Treasury has served to uncover that the Barcelona club paid over two decades more than 7 million euros in total to Dasnil 95, a company owned by former referee and former vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) José María Enríquez Negreira in exchange for reports on the work of the members.
The current Barcelona president, Joan Laporta – the same one who was there between 2003 and 2010 -, regrets that the case broke out at a time of sporting bonanza, he does not deny the payments and states that they derive from a previous assignment to detect footballers interesting in lower categories. Without making any further statements, the president has opened an internal investigation even though Josep Maria Bartomeu, responsible for the entity between 2014 and 2020, put an end to the controversial agreement in June 2018. In fact, the former president, who had kept silence about other scandals involving him (such as Barçagate), he has lavished himself in the media in recent days, proud of having canceled the collaboration and of having endured the blackmails of Negreira, who threaten to disclose other club payments to suspicious companies, such as that of ex-director Josep Contreras, as he advanced The world.
Bartomeu maintains that Laporta quadrupled the annual amount for Dasnil 95 before the end of his first term. Sandro Rosell, his successor in the box office, inherited and maintained the figure, over half a million per season. After resigning over the Neymar case, Rosell handed over the presidency to Bartomeu, who turned his nose up at the agreement in question. For his part, Joan Gaspart, manager of Barça between 2000 and 2003 and vice-president of the RFEF with Ángel María Villar, says that he does not remember having paid any referee.
The leaders involved in the payments emphasize the fact that the visible figure of the investigated company was Antonio Enríquez, the son of the former vice-president of the CTA, to the point that Bartomeu asserts that he had no record of the relationship until he did not receive the father’s threats via burofax. The thesis of the former representative holds up to a certain extent, as can be seen from the testimony of an active referee whom the ARA has consulted to prepare this piece and who prefers not to reveal his name: “Toni Enríquez offered services of coaching to all the referees who came to professional football, and most of them accepted the proposal to earn points with their father. Now the collegiates are workers of the Federation, but until recently it was not like that. Before there was nothing regulated and the managers imposed a lot because the future of the referees was in their hands.”
Negreira had influence in decision-making, which is a dysfunction of the system because it can lead to unethical practices”
Cesar Ochoa Arbitration manager of the FCF between 2006 and 2009
The “musketeer” of Sánchez Arminio
In other words, Enríquez son also offered his services to professional referees, but they did know that his father was behind it. “The majority of the collegiates, coerced not to endanger their careers and their image within the CTA, hired him,” ruled the active referee. In these cases, payments were usually made in hand or via bank transfers. In recent years, Dasnil 95 operated mainly with Barça, as evidenced by the fact that it ceased activity after Bartomeu turned off the tap. Years ago, however, the company had invoiced the Catalan Football Federation, as César Ochoa, head of arbitration at the body between 2006 and 2009, admitted to the ARA: “Strange transactions were found in the mandate of Casajuana Rifà (1994-2006), such as one that was used to pay for 4,000 arbitration rules for only 1,500 collegiates. Dasnil also invoiced events for the matches at 17 cents when the usual price does not exceed 10”. Although he did not have much of a relationship with him, Ochoa reflects: “As vice president of the CTA, Negreira had no financial remuneration for his position, but he did have influence in decision-making, which is a dysfunction of the system because it can lead to unethical practices”.
In the same line is José Luis Paradas Romero, the only member of Primera who folded early because he disagreed with the system. “I had enough when, after expelling José Mourinho at the Bernabéu, they informed me that he would stop whistling for Real Madrid”, reports the former Andalusian referee to this newspaper, who defines Enríquez Negreira as “the musketeer” of Victoriano Sánchez Arminio , president of the CTA from 1993 to 2018. “When he was active, he was one of the best known along with Ramos Marcos and Urízar Azpitarte. This helped him weave a network of contacts with the clubs from which he later benefited. He was influential in a tremendously opaque system, and Barça has allowed itself to be ensnared”, says Paradas about a figure who for years decided the fate and trajectory of the men in black and who, as part of the ongoing investigation, has defined the tasks that his company did for Barça as “verbal advice”.
Some facts that have prescribed sports justice
The Negreira case came to light this week and will continue to beat in the coming days. The reputational cost for Barça is high because certain sectors have already installed suspicion about the club’s sporting achievements over the last two decades. On the other hand, the president of the League, Javier Tebas, has taken it upon himself to remind that the body he directs cannot sanction or open any file: “We have known an irregularity and facts that in the field of discipline sports are prescribed [han passat més de tres anys]. But in criminal law it is not prescribed, so if the Prosecutor’s Office files a complaint, we will adhere to it as a private accusation”. Tebas, always generous with his opinions, points out that Barça could have been “the victim of blackmail by part of a swindler who tried to defraud him.” “I wouldn’t be surprised if it had happened, but it is true that suddenly the situation has dragged on for so many years,” he added in an event held on Friday in the City Sportive Dani Jarque.
