“Not at all”, “zero”, “it is very difficult to corrupt a referee”, “impossible”. These are the answers most used by the 21 referees questioned by the Civil Guard to answer the big question of the case: Did Negreira influence his decisions? Could he have altered the competition? The referees are clear that not and that the 7.3 million that FC Barcelona paid to José María Enríquez Negreira for seventeen years should have had another purpose but not to buy games. This is stated in the part of the judicial summary to which La Vanguardia has had access and which compiles the interrogations carried out on the arbitration group to determine whether Negreira had the capacity to cause the referees to favor FC Barcelona. In the judicial case, Barça as a club and the former presidents Sandro Rosell, Josep María Bartomeu and Joan Laporta are being investigated, the latter waiting for the Barcelona Court to decide if his case is statute-barred or he should appear before justice.
In the responses provided to the Civil Guard, the 21 referees admit that they were unaware that Negreira was paid by Fútbol Club Barcelona but they limit his role to a single task: he was in charge of communicating promotions and demotions to them. They point out, however, that it was not he who made that decision but rather the president of the Technical Committee of Referees, especially Victoriano Sánchez Arminio. “Sánchez Arminio was the one who called the shots,” declared referee Daniel Ocón. Currently, the referees have auditors who make a report on the performance of each referee and which serves as a basis for evaluating them. One of the most media referees, Antonio Mateu Lahoz, responds that “it is impossible” that Negreira had the ability to alter the competition.
The referee, who retired this year, also wanted to remember that there have been “situations that are difficult to referee” in which “it has benefited some clubs or others.” And he wanted to point out that there have been occasions in which he has harmed Barça. For example, in the 2014 Copa del Rey final between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona in Di María’s 1-0, his position “was tight,” he acknowledges; He later recalled that he annulled a goal against Messi in the match against Atlético de Madrid in the last game that decided the League, or for example, that he gave a non-existent penalty to Lucas Digne in Las Palmas. “It was the first penalty called against Barça, and it wasn’t, after a long time,” Mateu highlighted.
The rest of the referees questioned maintain the same argument. Álvarez Izquiero assumes that Barça had to pay Negreira “for some type of interest” but denies that it affected the professional projection of the referees. David Medié remembers that Negreira called at the end of the season to report “who was promoted or relegated” but he rejects that he had any kind of influence. “It seems that it must have been a relationship of years thinking that perhaps what would go wrong for the club but I consider that this did not produce any influence on the refereeing team. I also don’t really know the specific reasons for those payments. I think the FCB wasted the money.”
Iturralde González denies Negreira’s ability to influence, especially on First Division referees, but believes, as an opinion, “that the payments to Negreira have been used to enrich Barcelona directors.” For his part, Jon Núñez Fernandez highlights that “it is very difficult to convince a professional referee to corrupt the competition” and Daniel Ocón, who refereed for a year in Primera, maintains that “they could not influence the competition at all.”
The referees have also explained that when it was their turn to whistle a match in Barcelona, ??whether for Barça or Espanyol, it was common for them to end up having dinner at the Esthvan restaurant, in the Sant Andreu neighborhood, where Negreira’s partner ran a seafood restaurant. And they also point out that his son, Javier Enríquez, who offered coaching services for referees and soccer players, was interested in accompanying the referees to the field before the game. Jaime Latre, current VAR referee, remembers that he took him to the Camp Nou “on two or three occasions.” He would call you the morning of the game, he would tell you that he would come to the hotel, have a coffee and take you to the field. It was not possible to decline that offer because it was the boss’s son,” he explains. He believes that he did it because “it was a way to access the stadium and be able to come into contact with footballers or other potential clients.”
