When FC Barcelona contracted the services of José María Enríquez Negreira, former vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees, they entrusted him with five tasks: to request that the Competition Committee, the entity responsible for disciplinary sanctions against players, not be made up entirely of judges from Madrid; that the club had an interlocutor with the RFEF; for Negreira to recommend which yellow cards or expulsions could be appealed after a match and to inform or notify of any institutional visit by the RFEF or the CTA. Finally, Negreira also had to keep the club informed of possible interests or disagreements between the RFEF and LaLiga. For fulfilling these five missions, declared by Negreira himself in October 2021 to the Treasury, the former referee billed 7.5 million euros between 2001 and 2018.
In addition, in a document that the police found at the home of the former FC Barcelona director, José Contreras, it was specified that Negreira’s son, Javier Enríquez, also prepared pre-match reports and an analysis of the performance of the post-match referees of the matches. from the first team, from the Barcelona subsidiary and also from Real Madrid, referred to in the document as “the rival RM”. All arbitration reports had to be provided to Barça “anonymously” and that both the billing and the reports “had to be delivered to Mr. Contreras by hand or to whomever was determined.”
The exchange of documents was carried out either at Contreras’ home or in cafeterias such as those of the Hotel Princesa Sofía or the Majestic.
Although the reports date back to 2012, in the extensive documentation of the summary there are examples from 2016 to 2018, the period investigated for tax purposes. The reports prior to the matches were about 10 pages long with photos of the main referee and his assistants and an extensive dossier with personal and professional explanations. The post-match documents consisted of tables with the minutes of the actions, the referee’s decision and whether, in the eyes of Enríquez Jr., they were correct or not.
The arbitration analyzes that include the first team in the summary are about the Copa del Rey matches of the 2016-2017 academic year. Also those games he played in the Champions League: the six in the group stage against Celtic Glasgow, Borussia Mönchengladbach and Manchester City, the round of 16 against PSG and the quarterfinals against Juventus in which the Catalans were eliminated. In the game that Barcelona came back from behind against PSG at the Camp Nou, it was pointed out that there were three refereeing errors by referee Deniz Aytekin in favor of the Catalans. The first was “Mascherano’s kick on Di María on an obvious goal occasion in the Barcelona area in the 84th minute that was not penalized.” The report describes that the correct decision would have been to “take a penalty against Barcelona and send off the Argentine defender.” Regarding the penalty awarded against Luis Suárez in the 89th minute, which made the score 5-1, the analysis states that the player “takes advantage of a slight contact on the chest to let himself fall” and ensures that the correct decision would have been not to point the penalty. The report still has an impact on a third play that, in Negreira’s opinion, benefited Barça: the penalty awarded against Neymar in the 47th minute and which made it 3-0, “was rigorous”.
The summary also reflects the income of the referees to an account that Javier Enríquez shares with his wife for his services as a coach. There are cases such as that of Jaime Latre, current VAR referee, who paid 1,400 euros between 2016 and 2017, or that of Alberola Rojas, who paid 7,400 euros between 2018 and 2019. Another lesser-known case is that of Óliver de la Fuente Ramos, referee from Segunda who paid 14,200 euros between 2016 and 2019. In his day he was the youngest referee to be promoted to Segunda.
