There have been no surprises. The former vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA), José María Enríquez Negreira, has taken advantage of his right not to testify before the judge investigating the payments he received from Barça for 17 years. When everyone thought that Negreira would claim that he suffers from Alzheimer’s and is not capable of answering, the former referee simply said that he was not answering in a hearing that lasted just two minutes and without referring to his state of health, according to legal sources. The investigating judge 1 of Barcelona, ??Joaquín Aguirre, summoned Enríquez Negreira to testify as an investigator, considering that he was qualified to do so despite the fact that he suffered some memory impairment due to his advanced age. The former referee has entered the Ciutat de la Justícia accompanied by his wife.
The instructor charged Negreira with the crimes of sports corruption, unfair administration, falsification of commercial documents, money laundering and bribery, the latter incorporated in September when considering that the former referee could be considered a public official while the CTA was an organization which depended on the Spanish Football Federation, which is funded by public funds.
With the refusal to testify, the only statement that appears in the case by the protagonist of the scandal is the one he gave to the Tax Agency on October 29, 2010 after it required him to justify the payments he received from Barça. Then, he assured that he charged the club for arbitration advice, a service that was provided verbally. “FC Barcelona considered that the team was being harmed and other teams were being favored. My obligation was to give my opinion on the matches in terms of refereeing and the players. Barça wanted to make sure that no decisions were made against them and that everything was neutral,” he said. Negreira said that his contacts were Bartomeu and Rosell and that he met with them about six times a year. The Treasury inspector asked him: “So if they only met at most six times a year and there was no written reports, why did they pay the amounts invoiced to DASNIL (Negreira’s company)?” He responded: “Because they were calm that in the arbitration committee there were no decisions against Futbol Club Barcelona, ??that everything was neutral.” .
Negreira’s deal with Barça lasted for 17 years. According to the Treasury, his contractual relationship began in 2001 under the presidency of Joan Gaspart and ended in 2018 when Bartomeu terminated the payments after Rubiales changed the CTA organizational chart. In total, Negreira received 7.5 million euros from Barça. The judge is waiting to receive a report from the Civil Guard in which he must analyze the 72 bank accounts that Negreira and his son managed to determine the destination of the money.
