Esteban Urreiztieta

Updated Wednesday, February 14, 2024-18:16

The Provincial Court of Barcelona warns, at this time of the investigation of the

'Negreira case'

, the commission of two crimes of sports corruption and disloyal administration by FC Barcelona and its last former presidents.

Through an order, to which EL MUNDO has had access, it completely rules out that the former general director of the club,

Albert Soler

, has incurred new crimes of prevarication and omission of the duty to pursue crimes, as the Royal Spanish Federation attributed to him without success. of Football (RFEF) under the presidency of

Luis Rubiales

, and takes the opportunity to analyze that so far what he does see are signs of the first two types of penalties.

"Through the factual account that is offered as the object of investigation, the facts could

prima facie

fit into a crime of corruption in sport or in the case of unfair administration provided for and punished in article 252 of the Penal Code," concludes the Section 21 of the Barcelona Court.

The aforementioned article "sanctions," the court recalls in its resolution, "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 powers." themselves, and in this way cause damage to the managed assets". In this sense, he emphasizes that "a priori, the illegitimate extraction of the club's funds for purposes other than the entity's objectives could have a place in the crime of unfair administration."

The Court refers to the payment over two decades by Barça of almost 8 million euros to the historic number two of the Spanish referees,

José María Enríquez Negreira

. This referee received the funds without a contract in exchange for alleged verbal advice aimed, as he himself declared before the Tax Agency, at ensuring that the Barça club had "neutral arbitrations." When he stopped collecting from FC Barcelona,

​​Negreira

threatened the club through two burofaxes revealed by EL MUNDO with uncovering a "big scandal" if he said that he had been collecting in favor of "exchanging favors and confidences" with the culé entity.

The Court's order supports the investigation led by the head of the Court of Instruction number one of Barcelona,

​​Joaquín Aguirre

, considers the classification presented by the Prosecutor's Office to be appropriate, and destroys the attempts of the RFEF, with the support of Real Madrid, to expand the crimes against former manager Soler, who had a confrontation during his time as leader of the Higher Sports Council (CSD) with both

Rubiales

and the president of the white club.

The Court must soon decide whether, in addition to the crimes of sports corruption and unfair administration, it notices the crime of bribery, indicated by Judge

Aguirre

and with which the current president of Barça,

Joan Laporta

, is being investigated . The Public Ministry has frontally opposed this accusation and has aligned itself with the defenses to request that Laporta be removed from the summary investigating the biggest scandal in the history of Spanish football.