The investigating judge 1 of Barcelona has reproached Joan Laporta for wanting to accuse Bartomeu and Rosell of unfair administration when he also paid Negreira. In an order issued this Tuesday, magistrate Joaquín Aguirre once again rejects that FC Barcelona can be a private prosecution in the crime of unfair administration. The club had requested to be able to have a double condition in the judicial process: investigated for the crime of sports corruption and accusation for the crime of unfair administration (paying a premium for a service) considering that the club had been harmed by the actions of its former presidents.
This request opened the possibility that FC Barcelona, ??as a legal entity, could end up accusing the accused former presidents, Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu, at the end of the investigation. For this reason, the judge reproaches Laporta for adopting this position when he also paid Negreira with the difference that his crime is prescribed due to the passage of time and not because of the “illegality of his acts.” “Laporta’s conduct in this regard is identical to that of subsequent presidents,” the judge underlines.
The judge considers “contrary to all ethics that whoever committed acts identical to those of subsequent presidents intends to appear in the case by exercising private accusation under the legal instrument of FC Barcelona, ??as if it were an abstract entity with its own “I”. alien to that of the club’s directors”. And he adds that “it is not ethically admissible for Laporta to accuse presidents Rosell and Bartomeu of the crime of disloyal administration, when there is more than ample evidence that Laporta committed the same acts as subsequent presidents. These facts consist of having paid the FC Barcelona paid large amounts of money to José María Enríquez Negreira for being one of the vice presidents of the Technical Committee of Referees of the Royal Spanish Football Federation.”
Furthermore, at a legal level the judge argues that the two crimes are related, which in technical language is called “in competition.” The judge considers that unfair administration was committed since money was taken from the club’s coffers to commit a crime of sports corruption or bribery when paying Negreira.
