September 05, (THEWILL) – Football giants Barcelona are under investigation by a Spanish court over allegations of “possible systemic corruption” in the country’s refereeing system.
According to court documents, Judge Joaquin Aguirre Lopez believes the club may have benefited from improper payments to refereeing officials for nearly two decades between 2001 and 2018. The judge said that any other La Liga clubs competing against Barcelona during that period could potentially take legal action if evidence emerged of a scheme to influence match officials.
Prosecutors filed a complaint in March over alleged payments exceeding €7 million from Barcelona to companies owned by former refereeing committee vice-president Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira. Barca’s rivals Real Madrid have joined the lawsuit as an affected party. Judge Aguirre noted that “it is presumed by logic” that Barcelona would not pay Negreira such sums unless they stood to gain some advantage.
While no evidence has yet been found of direct match-fixing, the ranking and evaluation of referees was Negreira’s responsibility. Other top-flight clubs at the time may also have grounds for complaint if the committee appointed certain referees to matches based on improper criteria unrelated to ability. Aguirre described the situation as “a novel form of possible illegitimate retribution”.
Barcelona have denied wrongdoing, claiming the payments were for legitimate technical reports. The court has opened a separate investigation into potential money laundering by Negreira’s network of companies used to channel Barcelona’s alleged payments. Negreira himself has so far been unreachable for comment on the allegations.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
