A potential scandal in Spanish football has been exposed.
Now Barcelona is being investigated for paying millions to a referee.
Spanish broadcaster Cadena SER reports that FC Barcelona, between 2016 and 2018, paid about SEK 16 million to DASNIL 95. The owner of the company is José María Enriquez Negrera, who was vice-president of the Spanish board between 1994 and 2018. Referees Committee .
The payments are said to have been made on three different occasions, only to stop in 2018, the year Negrera left his position on the referees’ panel.
I advise
A possible bribery scandal drew attention when Negreira was investigated by the Spanish tax authorities. The reason for the review is that he was unable to show any documentation proving the kind of service he helped Barcelona with.
According to Forbes, Negreira claims written documentation is missing because the service consisted of providing verbal advice to Barcelona on how players should treat referees in the league.
can be severely punished
Barcelona wrote in a press release that it will take legal action against those who make false accusations against the club. Their explanation is that they had previously hired an outside consultant, among other things to assist the coaching staff in obtaining technical reports on the referees. Now they have an employee who does the job.
If found guilty, severe punishments await them. When it was revealed in 2006 that Juventus had bribed referees, they were relegated to Serie B.