On February 21, a month and a half ago, Joan Laporta broke his silence on the Negreira case, uncovered six days earlier by Cadena Ser. That day, at the Camp Nou, he announced two things: an external investigation and an explanatory press conference on his part. The first of these initiatives is underway. It is assumed. There is still no news about the second, despite the fact that the case has advanced until it has been accepted for processing by a court of Barcelona of the complaint made by the Prosecutor’s Office.
During all these weeks, in which multiple details of the relationship between Barça and Enríquez Negreira between 2001 and 2018 have been revealed, Laporta has encouraged victimhood and an alleged conspiracy against the club. All this from a sentence that he has turned into a motto of his defense before public opinion: “Barça has never bought referees”.
Proven facts of the Negreira case
It happens, in effect, that the fact that he denies, which at the beginning seemed white and in a bottle, is losing followers even among his staunchest enemies. It is evident (because it has been proven) that Negreira received money from Barça, that a large part of the services that he allegedly provided in exchange (advice and arbitration reports) lack documentary support and that the provider was vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees of the RFEF in those years. But the thesis that the money, or part of it, ended up in the pocket of some referees to favor Barça on the pitch is losing strength.
In the first place, because, despite the social pressure to which the group has been subjected, not a single one of the dozens of First Division referees in those almost two decades has suggested that this practice could exist. Neither putting his name and surname to a confession nor doing it anonymously. So far, not a single journalist who is following the case (and there are many) has published information that points to that path. And there is not one who has not sought it. The Treasury has not found any evidence in this regard either.
Estrada Fernández’s complaint
Solo Xavier Estrada Fernandez, Catalan and, therefore, never a referee in a Barça match, has broken the unity of the collective and has been, precisely, for denounce Enríquez Negreira in court. His figure and his role in the case continues to generate controversy. The CTA is silent, he too, and the theories around him feed on who is behind his movement, if there is anyone. There are those who see the hand of Barça behind the ilerdense referee, but it is only a conjecture. Like the one that says that he wants to take revenge on the CTA and the RFEF because he knew that they would not renew his contract for the next season. Then, however, it will be councilor of the city council of Lleida for ERC if the May elections do not say otherwise.
Nor does it fit directly interested observers in the event that there is a large plot of referees. In a League with 38 referees, they say, a club should buy a large number of referees to ensure behavior that is thoughtfully beneficial to its interests. And maintaining that ‘omertà’ for so many years borders on the impossible.
Negreira’s role in the CTA
And it cannot be ignored that those who participated in those years in the arbitration body highlight that Negreira’s role was residual, that he neither participated in the assignment of referees nor decided on promotions and relegations, since was limited only to inform those affected about them. And although this version raises doubts, it is evident that Negreira was a figure of second order in the arbitration government.
So, Why did Barça, with four different presidents (Gaspart, Laporta, Rosell and Bartomeu) pay at least 7.2 million euros to Negreira? The thesis that is gaining the most strength in recent days, based on the analysis of the documentation that the Prosecutor’s Office made available to the court, is that the former vice president of the CTA was a vehicle for Barça executives to collect, indirectly from the coffers of the own club, bonuses in black money. Managers who, by statute, cannot receive a salary from the Barça entity.
The Tax Agency itself, in the report that it transferred to the Prosecutor’s Office (and this, in turn, to the judge) already reflected that Negreira withdrew 28% in cash of the money he received from Barça between 2016 and 2018, the period initially investigated . An amount that rises to 557,871 euros in those years and that the Treasury believes that it could have been allocated to third parties linked to Barcelona, according to El Periódico de Catalunya, from the Prensa Ibérica group.
The role of Josep Contreras
The role of the late manager Josep Contreras, intermediary and commission agent for the agreements between Barça and Negreira, reinforces this theory. According to this thesis, outlined by the Treasury in its report, the money that came out of Barça’s coffers would be divided between him, the former referee and, possibly, those third parties linked to the club. Some of Barça’s main detractors are convinced that this was the case.
A priori, this possibility has two weaknesses. An arbitration leader seems the least suitable person in the world to act as a vehicle to collect a salary in ‘b’, since to the crimes inherent to this practice, one can easily add that of sports corruption, as it is happening. If the figurehead had been another, right now Barça would not see their participation in the next Champions League at risk.
The termination of the agreement with Negreira in 2018
But Negreira could have served as an alibi to justify the amount of those payments internally. “Barça wanted to make sure that no decisions were made against the club, that everything was neutral”, he declared to the Treasury. That would also serve to explain the second weakness of the bonus theory: the suspension of the agreement in 2018. Because if Negreira was no longer vice president of the CTA (rubiales dismissed him as soon as he became president of the RFEF)paying him so that “everything was neutral” stopped serving as an internal alibi at Barça.
The job of the Civil Guard, to whom the judge has commissioned the investigation, is now to find proof and evidence that will allow us to fit the puzzle to discover if, as Laporta defends and also many of his enemies, “Barça has never bought referees”. And if any of the managers of those 17 years ended up keeping part of the money that Barça paid Negreira for reasons that the club has not wanted to talk about.
Maybe at a press conference. One of these months.
