The keys to the ‘Negreira case’ that put Barcelona on the ropes: payments, Bartomeu, reports

The ‘Negreira case’ continues with the investigations that the judge is carrying out on the alleged sports corruption of FC Barcelona. In addition, its former presidents Josep María Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell provide details to the summary about the reports, the relationship he had and the payments to the former vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees. These are the keys provided by the summary:

The report that the Tax Agency made in April 2022 and which includes the summary of the case maintains that the former referee billed Barça more than 7.5 million euros between the years 2001 and 2018 through three companies: DASNIL 95 SL, NILSAD SCP y SOCCERCAM SLthe latter owned by his son Javier Enríquez Romero.

Between 2016 and 2018, the period investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office, DASNIL 95 SL, the company with which the former referee billed FC Barcelona, received payments from the Barça club that exceeded 1.6 million euros.

NILSAD SCP received a single payment of 50,000 euros in 2016 and SOCCERCAM SL billed Barça 450,120 euros. In total, 2.1 million in those three years.

In that period, Enríquez Negreira withdrew 557,871.52 euros in cash, which according to the conclusions of the Tax Agency “could have been used directly for alleged payments to third parties“.

However, the tax authorities warned the Prosecutor’s Office that they had not been able to prove that the payments made by FC Barcelona to the former vice president of the Referees Technical Committee (CTA) they had influenced the designation of referees or altered the results of the matches.

Treasury points out that “that lack of accreditation and explanation” of the works to Barcelona could be “an indication” that the invoices could be concealing illegal services such as trading with confidential information from the arbitration committee, influencing arbitration appointments or participating in the alteration of results.

However, he stresses that these behaviors “have not been accredited in the inspection procedure“, as there is no evidence, according to the Tax Agency, of payments to any arbitrator.

The only statements by Enríquez Negreira in relation to the payments he received from FC Barcelona were made to the Tax Agency and date back to October 2021three years after Barcelona broke the professional relationship with him.

In February 2023, on the other hand, the former arbitration leader did not respond to the National Police investigators, arguing that suffers from alzheimer.

In the presentation he made to the Treasury inspectors, the former vice-president of the CTA assured that FC Barcelona wanted “everything was neutral“through the payments he received from the Barça club and denied having used the money to buy referees.

In addition, Enríquez Negreira revealed that as vice president of the CTA between the years 1994 y 2018 he never charged for it, since he had his company and “he charged from FC Barcelona”.

The National Police concludes, in the investigation report commissioned by the Prosecutor’s Office, that the account that the former president of Barcelona Josep Maria Bartomeu gave in his statement before the investigators about his relationship with Enríquez Negreira is not sustained.

On February 13, the former manager of the Barça club declared that he was under investigation before the National Police, which then kept the investigation open for the payments that Barça made to Negreira between 2001 and 2018.

In the interrogation, Bartomeu denied that he met Enríquez Negreira six times a yearsomething that the former referee had assured before the Tax Agency in the statement made in October 2021.

“I knew him for having been a soccer referee and having coincided in the Spanish Soccer Federation“, he replied, according to the transcript of the statement Bartomeu, who added that he knew him “through the press, not because he was related to him.”

However, the DASNIL 95 secretary assured, in her witness statement to the National Police on February 9, 2023, that on one occasion Bartomeu went to Enríquez Negreira’s office to talk about football.

A few hours after the first details of the ‘Negreira case’ were released on February 15, Barcelona admitted the payments to the company DASNIL 95 to have “technical reports” related to arbitration.

In addition to reports on referees such as Jesús Gil Manzano, Antonio Mateu Lahoz and Carlos Clos Gómezthe summary of the case includes the arbitration analysis of Barcelona matches, and also of some Real Madrid and Atlético de Madrid matches carried out by the former referee and his son, Javier Enríquez Romero.

in one of the Almost 600 reports included in the case, recommended in May 2016 that the Barça club “take great care” of its relationship with the referee Jesús Gil Manzanosince due to his youth and projection he would direct “important games for many seasons”.