The possible threat from UEFA to FC Barcelona due to the Negreira case is beginning to take shape supported by the information provided to the highest body of European football by the Spanish Football Federation, who yesterday published a statement confirming that it has appeared in the procedure, once admitted for processing by the trial court number 1 of Barcelona the complaint by the Prosecutor’s Office for the payments of FC Barcelona to the former vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA), José María Enríquez Negreira. LaLiga, the CSD and Real Madrid will also appear.
In its letter, the Federation chaired by Luis Rubiales points out that “after analyzing the situation, we have sent the report from our Integrity department to the UEFA director of Integrity”, as well as “all the documentation that supports the letter”. “The Federation – he insists – is collaborating from the outset with the competent authorities to make the work of the investigation into these events as easy as possible, which predates the current management team. UEFA has also been informed of the appearance in court by the Royal Spanish Football Federation. At the same time, the aforementioned report prepared by the Integrity department has been transferred to the CSD, with a copy to FC Barcelona and the CTA”.
Lastly, the Federation says “it wants to go all the way” and asks, in turn, for “the necessary and advisable serenity that helps to reduce the climate of tension that has been created towards the arbitration collective. This is not beneficial for football. The application of justice requires some time and to prove those facts that can be considered illegal ”, concludes the federative letter.
It should be remembered that UEFA is not in good harmony with FC Barcelona right now due to its support (together with Real Madrid and Juventus) for the European Super League, an issue right now awaiting resolution in the courts in a sentence that wait before next summer.
It would not be the first time that UEFA does not wait for a judicial resolution to separate a club from its competitions. Among the clubs expelled from UEFA there are some well-known ones, such as the Belgian Anderlecht.
This is something that the specialized lawyer Jacinto Vicente recalled in an interview on RAC 1: “The Prosecutor’s Office does not have to prove that Barça has bought a referee; it is enough for him to demonstrate the intention to adulterate a competition. We are not talking about a crime of rigging results, but about a crime of intent to alter the competition”.
For Jacinto Vicente, “Barça did not win a Copa del Rey because of Enríquez Negreira, but technically a judge has to assess whether one club has been given a privileged position over another. And UEFA is discussing whether to expel Barcelona from its competitions for a reputational reason, a resolution that the club could appeal, before CAS in the first place.
At the Congress that FIFA is holding in Kigali (Rwanda), its president, Gianni Infantino, spoke for the first time about the Negreira case and his words are cautious, but not very reassuring for Barcelona either: “We are concerned about what is going. Everything will be analyzed, for example in Spain. See what happened and happens, and see how it is solved. In Italy there are also problems. Together we have to give a positive impulse in case it is possible to reduce the tension that exists, but solutions must be found”.
