The Catalans are under pressure over making payments to a referee-owned company.
Barcelona president Joan Laporta has criticized Real Madrid for entering the Negreira case as witnesses.
Spanish prosecutors have charged Barcelona with “continued corruption in business” over their payments to Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira.
Negreira was the vice president of the Spanish football’s referring committee between 1994 and 2018. The Catalans have made payments to DASNIL 95, a company owned by Enriquez Negreira, between 2001 and 2018.
The case opened in May 2022 and has escalated dramatically in recent weeks, with UEFA also starting their own investigations.
“The club that has been historically favoured in refereeing decisions has decided to appear in the Negreira case. It’s nonsense,” Laporta said (via Spanish journalist Alfredo Martinez).
“They have nothing because there is nothing. Here what they have done is magnify a situation in which one of the people who was linked to these companies was a former referee and a former vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees. [Negreira] had no capacity to alter the results of any match because he did not designate the referees.”
In recent days, reports have emerged of new evidence that shows Barcelona are innocent, and their payments haven’t affected the refereeing of their matches.
Authorities have reportedly concluded that Barcelona haven’t engaged in match-fixing. However, the club could still face sanctions over other violations.
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