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UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin stated on Monday that the Barcelona referee scandal is one of the most serious situations he has ever seen in soccer. UEFA, the European soccer governing body, opened an official investigation into FC Barcelona over the “Negreira case” just last month. Meanwhile, the club have asked La Liga president Javier Tebas to resign.
Spanish prosecutors have filed corruption charges against Barcelona and former club presidents Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu for allegedly making payments to a company owned by Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, an ex-vice president of the referee committee in Spain who worked under the Spanish football association between 1993 and 2018. Former club executives Oscar Grau and Albert Soler have also been listed in the case.
The public prosecutor’s office investigating the case revealed that Negreira received approximately over €7 million in payments from the club between 2001 and 2018 to influence match results. Their claim is that under a secret agreement and in exchange for payments, Negreira favored Barcelona in both decisions taken by referees in games played by the club as well as in competition results. If this is proven to be true, this could become one of the major earthquakes in the recent history of the club.
“The situation is extremely serious,” Ceferin told Slovenian newspaper Ekipa on Monday.
“It is so serious that, in my opinion, it is one of the most serious [situations] in soccer that I have ever seen.”
Ceferin doesn’t have a good relationship with the Spanish club after Barcelona, among other eleven European clubs, decided to join the proposed European Super League. Despite the failure of the project, Barcelona decided to remain part of it with Real Madrid and Juventus, while all the other clubs left.
“I cannot comment directly on this for two reasons,” Ceferin said. “Firstly, because we have an independent disciplinary committee in charge of this. And secondly, because I have not dealt with this matter in detail.”
“At the level of [La Liga], of course, the matter is time-barred and can have no competitive consequences, but the proceedings are ongoing at the level of prosecutors. But as far as UEFA is concerned, there is nothing time-barred.”
At the same time, FC Barcelona have fired back against Tebas and asked for his resignation. On Monday, Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia claimed that Tebas sent a document to the prosecutor, written by former Barcelona director Josep Contreras, that implicated Bartomeu and Rosell in the alleged crimes of financial impropriety and misappropriation.
FC Barcelona responded via a statement:
“Given the gravity of the information that has appeared today Monday in La Vanguardia in which La Liga president Javier Tebas is linked to the presentation of false evidence to the public prosecutor to incriminate our club, FC Barcelona wishes to expresses its deepest indignation, anger and dismay.
“For that reason, we urgently require the La Liga president to appear in public to explain himself, beyond the tweet sent in the early hours by Mr. Tebas, lacking substance and with a threatening tone.
“If only for this fact, that of giving himself powers that do not belong to him, although also for reasons of dignity and respect for the presidency of La Liga, Mr.Tebas should resign from his post. Nevertheless, aware of his obsession with persecuting FC Barcelona and showing his constant averse and manifest dislike of our Club, we understand that the current La Liga president will persist in his efforts to keep damaging our club.”
