Reaction Laporta sees in the 'Negreira case' a conspiracy orchestrated by Thebes and the League: "Barça is a victim"
Mentidero de las Salesas The Prosecutor's Office finalizes the complaint against Barcelona for payments to Negreira
After ten months of hand-in-hand investigation with the National Police Force, the
Barcelona Prosecutor's Office
is preparing to present its complaint in the courts for the
Negreira case
.
According to tax sources reported to EL MUNDO, the Public Ministry will act against
Barcelona Football Club
as a legal person, the former number two of the referees
José María Enríquez Negreira
, the former president of the entity
, Josep María Bartomeu
and the former directors
Albert Soler
and
Óscar Grau
for the crimes of corruption in business and unfair administration.
With the complaint -at the close of this edition the Public Prosecutor's Office was still working on the final version of it-, the investigation that keeps Barça in check will be left in the hands of a judge, by placing serious suspicions on the club that it bought during almost two decades the will of the former vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees.
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Negreira offered himself to Barça after being fired with a disturbing proposal: "I can help you with the VAR"
The Catalan Prosecutor's Office sent the text to the
State Prosecutor General's Office
yesterday for review.
Among the aspects that have not yet been closed are, for example, whether or not criminal action will be brought against Negreira's son -
Javier Enríquez Negreira -
or if the crime of documentary falsification will be included in the complaint, state tax sources.
It is foreseeable that these fringes will be closed in the next few hours and the complaint will be filed immediately in the courts.
According to the investigations, Enríquez Negreira received, between 2001 and 2018, 6,659,488 euros through alleged arbitration advice provided to Fútbol Club Barcelona.
These payments were channeled through two instrumental companies controlled by the former number two of the referees,
Dasnil 95
and
Nilsad
, who issued fictitious invoices to the Barça club for "technical video advice".
Investigation sources explain that Fútbol Club Barcelona deducted payments to Negreira as expenses for years without, however, being able to prove the commission for the advisory work carried out by the aforementioned merchants.
In addition, the complaint will reflect the large withdrawals of cash -up to 20,000 euros as revealed by this newspaper- that the former vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees made from their accounts.
In fact, the investigation was opened after the
Tax Agency
detected irregularities around Enríquez Negreira's companies.
After receiving the notice from the public prosecutor, the Provincial Prosecutor's Office of Barcelona opened some pretrial proceedings that it left in the hands of the Police and that ten months later it is preparing to prosecute, once two weeks ago the agents delivered their conclusions on the latest proceedings carried out after the taking of a statement from the former Barça leadership, including former president Bartomeu.
arbitration bribery
Article 286.4 of the
Penal Code
establishes that "managers, administrators, employees or collaborators of a sports entity, regardless of its legal form, as well as athletes, referees or judges, will commit a crime of corruption in business." of those conducts whose purpose is to deliberately and fraudulently predetermine or alter the result of a test, meeting or sporting competition of special economic or sporting relevance”.
The Fútbol Club Barcelona will be denounced as a legal person for this criminal offense, according to sources in the case.
In addition, article 252 of the Criminal Code establishes that the perpetrators of the crime of unfair administration are "those who, having powers to administer another's assets, emanating from the law, entrusted by the authority or assumed through a legal transaction, infringe them by exceeding the exercise of the same and, in this way, cause damage to the administered patrimony".
This crime will also be included in the complaint and will affect, among others, former president Bartomeu for whom the facts - unlike the rest of the former presidents who consented and/or allegedly authorized the payments to Negreira - are not prescribed.
In addition, the Prosecutor's Office will direct its complaint against the former director of professional sports of the Barcelona Football Club, Albert Soler (also former general director of sports of the Higher Sports Council) and against the former executive director of the entity, Óscar Grau, for being aware of the continuous payments that the club made to the companies of the former number two of the referees.
However, tax sources emphasize that the criminal responsibility of each investigated will be elucidated as the judicial investigation progresses, since when a complaint is filed, the crimes will be collected generically.
At the end of February, the Barcelona Prosecutor's Office issued the decree concluding its investigation proceedings -initiated in May 2022 and extended in November of that same year- and since then the prosecutor in the case, Virginia Sánchez Prieto, has been working in the complaint that will be presented imminently for a football scandal that keeps Barça on the ropes.
Parallel to the prosecutor's pre-trial proceedings, the
Court of Instruction number 1 of Barcelona
has on the table the complaint that the arbitrator
Xavier Estrada Fernández
has presented against Negreira for these same facts.
The complaint has not yet been admitted for processing, but Judge Joaquín Aguirre has declared himself competent to investigate the facts.
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