Joan Laporta’s explanations mark the path that FC Barcelona will follow to defend itself against the serious accusations about the purchase of referees. In yesterday’s press conference, the president outlined the broad lines on which the club’s defense will be based and which will be carried out by the lawyer Marc Molins, recently signed up to lead the case together with Cristóbal Martell, and with whom he is convinced that will end up exonerated of any responsibility. Regardless of whether what Laporta said is true or not, the account that he made fits with some evidence but contradicts others that appear in the judicial summary.
Laporta was emphatic denying the accusation that the payments to Negreira could have been used to influence arbitration decisions. It is the accusation that the club must face, which is currently being investigated as a legal entity for sports corruption, a crime that implies that it altered the competition through illegal payments. The prosecution’s accusation was fueled by a fact: Barça paid 7.3 million euros to the vice president of the Referees Committee for 17 years for services for which there is no proof that they were provided. The Prosecutor’s Office pointed out that “Barça reached and maintained a strictly confidential verbal agreement with EnrÃquez Negreira, so that, in his capacity as Vice President of the Technical Committee of Referees and in exchange for money, he would carry out actions tending to favor FC Barcelona in taking decisions of the referees in the matches played by the Club. Invoices were issued to Barça without them responding to any provision or real technical advisory services. How did Laporta counter this accusation? Saying that jobs existed.
Barça paid for an arbitration advisory service and not to influence the referees. This is the thesis. The service existed, it was provided and a price was paid according to the market. The Treasury’s suspicions began because when they asked Barça where the jobs that Negreira did and for which he invoiced Barça were. The club replied that they did not have them. The Treasury concluded that “no document has been provided to prove that a service was provided to FC Barcelona” and that fueled suspicions. The president excused himself by saying that the fact that the reports were not presented does not mean that they did not exist. For this reason, the club in the internal investigation that commissioned the office of Andreu Van den Eynde’s lawyer found 629 reports and 43 CDs of arbitration analysis videos that Laporta exhibited with four boxes located next to the lectern. Now, during his first statement to the Treasury, Negreira indicated that he was paid by Barça because the club “wanted to make sure that there were no arbitration decisions against him and so that everything was neutral.”
FC Barcelona considers that Negreira was an experienced person in the arbitration field and was fully entitled to prepare advice. There was no incompatibility, he argues, because he had no ability to influence the actions of the referees.
The reports that Barça could not find when requested by the Treasury have been found on the club’s hard drives and appeared in the registry that was carried out at the home of the former manager linked to the Club, Josep Contreras in 2017 when the Soule case broke out. Contreras from 2016 acted as an intermediary between Barça and Negreira’s son. His company TRESEP acquired the arbitration reports from Negreira’s son and then sold them to the club at a 33% higher price. Contreras was investigated for an alleged diversion of money from the Catalan Federation and the Treasury indicated in his report that the former manager could have acted in the same way by diverting money from Barça to his companies. All the recovered reports are the work of Javier EnrÃquez, Negreira’s son, who admitted having prepared the arbitration analyzes for Barça since 2016.
Barça maintains that the person who carried out the work was Negreira’s son despite the fact that they invoiced the father’s company. The son had 5% of his father’s companies. In this way they would avoid the doubts raised by the payments to the former number two of the arbitrators. To accredit it with the support of the reports that have been found and that the period investigated is from 2013 to 2018. As there are only reports of the son, Barça does an extrapolation exercise saying that all the previous ones to that date also did the son. However, this explanation can be quarantined. Negreira stated before the Treasury that he was paid to guarantee neutrality and that his service was merely verbal. And the son, Javier EnrÃquez, assured the police that his role in the NILSAD company “was totally fictitious” because it was his father who was in control of the company.
The club will ask the judge in the Negreira case to be able to appear as the injured party and exercise private prosecution against those who have been able to enrich themselves at the expense of Barça. The decision will be raised by the club’s lawyers, alleging that the club’s assets may have been affected by the actions of some former leaders as a result of the evidence collected about Contreras and that therefore Barça has the legitimacy to be an accuser. If so, the club would be, as a legal person, accused of sports corruption and as harmed by the crime of unfair administration. In a future scenario, if irregularities were found during the presidencies of Rosell and Bartomeu, Barça is willing to file charges. By locating the starting point of the alleged irregularities from 2016, the first stage of Joan Laporta with the presidency is beyond suspicion.
