Barcelona investigated over alleged payments to refereeing official

As reported by The Guardian via Reuters, Spanish prosecutors are investigating around €1.4m in payments La Liga club Barcelona made over three years to a company owned by an official of Spain’s refereeing body.

On Wednesday, Spanish outlet Cadena SER reported that the Catalan club made payments from 2016 to 2018 to a company of José María Enríquez Negreira while he served as vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees (known by its Spanish acronym CTA), the governing body of the referees of the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF).

In a statement, Barcelona said the club had “hired the services of an external consultant” that supplied it with “technical reports related to professional refereeing”, adding that it is “a common practice among professional football clubs”.

On Wednesday, former Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu told Catalan newspaper Mundo Deportivo that the payments were made before 2003, totalling €575,000 per year since the 2009-10 season, and were stopped in 2018.

Prosecutors reportedly launched the investigation in 2022 after a tax office inspection of a company owned by Negreira found no record or services provided to Barcelona in return for €1.4m in payments.

Negreira said, as reported by SER, that his advice was verbal and included players’ interactions with referees. He also denied ever favouring the Camp Nou side in any refereeing decision.

Kieran Quaile | GSFN