The defense lawyers of those investigated in the Negreira case met last Thursday with FC Barcelona to set the strategy, as revealed by Món to RAC1 and close sources have confirmed to La Vanguardia. The summit was attended by the lawyers representing the accused after the filing of the complaint by the Prosecutor’s Office. Pau Molins, representing Sandro Rosell; José María Fuster Fabra, on behalf of Josep Maria Bartomeu; Josep Riba, Òscar Grau’s lawyer; Miguel Capuz, lawyer for Albert Soler; and Cristóbal Martell, on behalf of FC Barcelona, ??which is charged as a legal entity. The meeting was a first contact between the defenses that explore whether a common strategy would be better or that each defend themselves on their own.
During the meeting, the possibility of making a joint statement was raised to explain the payments that the club made for 17 years to the vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees, José María Enríquez Negreira. That possibility was considered but no decision was made in this regard. The possibility of giving a joint press conference was not ruled out either, but it did not materialize either. The lawyers also commented that when a common strategy was maintained, as in the Neymar DIS case, the result was better. The defense lawyers have not yet appeared in the case and will do so in the coming days. It will be then when they have access to the investigation that the Prosecutor’s Office has carried out over the last year and for which it came to the conclusion that the agreement between Barça and Negreira had the objective of “favoring the club in the decision-making of the referees in matches to dispute”, he literally said.
The examining magistrate 1 of Barcelona accepted the complaint of the active arbitrator, Xavier Estrada Fernández, and the complaint from the Prosecutor’s Office after appreciating evidence of crime in the actions of those investigated as well as of FC Barcelona. The magistrate gave the case to the Civil Guard who will focus on trying to clarify where the money that Barça paid Negreira ended up since the analysis of the ex-referee’s accounts did not show that he had enriched himself. The former referee argued before the Tax Agency that the money was withdrawn by his secretary through bearer checks, with which the Prosecutor’s Office suspects that he could have paid third parties. Those investigated will be summoned to testify once the Civil Guard concludes its investigation.
