LaLiga clubsin a joint statement, have “repudiated and rejected” this Tuesday, the 21st, the facts of the so-called Negreira case. It is, for the moment, the latest news of great depth that has been published around a case that jumped just seven days ago, and in which eitb.eus wants to stop to analyze in depth what it consists of, what the Prosecutor’s Office is investigating, what consequences it could have and what the protagonists of it have explained.

What is being investigated in the Negreira case, and who is investigating?

As it became known last Tuesday, the Barcelona Prosecutor’s Office investigate, for an alleged crime of corruption between individualsto DASNIL 95 SL, a company owned by José María Enríquez Negreira, former referee and number two of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) between 1994 and 2018for payments of 1.4 million euros made by FC Barcelona between 2016 and 2018. The program revealed it “That you play”, of SER Catalunya, which also reported that the investigation had been initiated as a result of a tax Inspectorate to DASNIL 95 SL for the taxation of the aforementioned 1.4 million euros.

According to that same information, FC Barcelona paid the aforementioned company 532,728.02 euros in 2016, 541,752 euros in 2017 and 318,200 euros in 2018, which is when the last payment was made. It is a date that coincides, according to the radio program, with the constitution of a new CTA and the departure of Enríquez Negreira from the Committee.

In exchange for the money paid, FC Barcelona would have obtained reports who advised him on the referees who should be in charge of the matches of the first team of the Catalan team.

What explanations have the protagonists given?

Quoted by the same program of SER Catalunya, the former president of FC Barcelona Josep Maria Bartomeu (he was in office between 2014 and 2020) He had ensured that the payments were ended due to “a policy of cutting expenses”, and had indicated that the reports already existed “at least in 2003”, when he arrived at the club, and that they were paid “continuously”. until 2018.

That same version was supported, according to “Que t’hi jugues”, by the Directive of Sandro Rosell, president of FC Barcelona between 2010 and 2014while Joan Gaspart, president of the Catalan club between 2000 and 2003, assured that these payments “do not know” him.

In a statement to Cadena SER, the former referee and former number two of the CTA Enriquez Negreira He assured that there is no documentation on this matter, because his job consisted of verbally advising the Barça club; Among other issues, explained the ex-referee, he advised FC Barcelona on how the players should behave in front of each referee. He never favored Barça in any decision or arbitration appointment, he specified.

For his part, this Tuesday, the current president of FC Barcelona, ​​Joan Laporta, has assured that “shortly” he will give “all the necessary explanations” regarding the Negreira case. The club that he presides over has been carrying out, for a few days, an external investigation, and Laporta, as he has stated, will soon explain what FC Barcelona has in this regard “in all these years”.

The president of the Barcelona entity has clarified that, in his first term, between 2003 and 2010, “these services” of Enríquez Negreira’s company were carried out “with the invoice and the corresponding documentary and video support”, and that the invoices they were paid “for services rendered”.

In his message, Joan Laporta has alluded to javier thebes, president of LaLiga, who this Monday has asked for the resignation of the Barcelona president if he did not give convincing explanations on the matter: “I will not give him the pleasure, because Barcelona belongs to his partners,” he indicated. Tebas himself, on Friday, explained that LaLiga does not denounce the alleged irregularities in the Negreira case because “the Prosecutor’s Office is investigating” and does not want to “hinder” it, since “it could delay the process.”

What does LaLiga say?

javier thebesin his speech on the 17th, pointed out that a possible irregularity in the sports field would be prescribed, so there could be no sports sanctionsbut, he noted, “in the field of criminal law, no. We have been active in different cases, in different complaints. This investigation is in the Prosecutor’s Office, it is not in a court, so neither the League nor the RFEF are part of the process and we cannot have the documentation”, he stated: “It is not the League that does not investigate, it does not do it because it’s time-barred”, explained Tebas, who believes that the case is “doing a lot of damage to football”, with “signs” that “something is not right”.

“They are a series of payments, for amounts that are not clear. I don’t know if it has affected the results of the matches or not, but, as president of LaLiga, I don’t like the invoices or the payments. LaLiga cannot Being passive when faced with indications that something is not right. Trying it is already punishable, it is not necessary to get the results. The indications of invoices, the concepts, so that the referees are neutral, is not their thing in a fair game of a competition. It’s strange, it has to be clarified,” Tebas pointed out.

What consequences could it have?

In this sense, the alleged crime of corruption between individuals investigated by the Barcelona Prosecutor’s Office would prescribe in criminal matters in June 2023, according to the specialized portal Iusport. In this way, despite the fact that as a sports infraction it could have prescribed, since more than three years have passed, which is the term for very serious infractions, according to article 112 of the Sports Law, this is not the case in criminal proceedings, whose term, in this case, is five years.

Article 286 bis of the Penal Code contemplates a imprisonment from six months to four years For these cases, in addition to the special disqualification for the exercise of the activity for a period of between one and six yearsand one penalty fee.

Iusport specifies that in the Negreira case, considering a sentence of less than five years, the crime also prescribes after five years, and, as the last payment made by Barcelona to DASNIL 95 SL was made in June 2018, the facts would prescribe in June of this 2023.

Source: Eitb

Kingston

Kingston is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.