Faith moved mountains in the distant past, in our time it is emotions that cause earthquakes. Listening to Joan Laporta give explanations about the Negreira case, the feeling is that his arguments did not contribute anything new. Or he did not say anything that he had not said before, such as that Barça has not paid for having a sporting advantage, that Barcelona fans have been suffering a smear campaign for two months that has nothing to do with reality and that the Tax Agency does not has been able to demonstrate that the payments made could have affected any result. His intervention was a mixture of pragmatism and victimhood to reinforce confidence in the club and recharge the emotions of the fans. The only new thing was to see the 629 reports, 43 CDs and four additional dossiers, which would justify the payment for 18 years to the company of Javier Negreira Romero, son of whom he was vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees.
Laporta pointed to Javier Tebas as the person who was having "irresponsible behavior" in this matter, calling into question the honor of Barça without respecting the presumption of innocence. And he justified it by his refusal to sign with the CVC fund and by his position in favor of the European League. Instead, he was impeccable with Aleksander Ceferin, president of UEFA, saying that he had not signed up for this public lynching, validating "false hypotheses."
Two months after the Negreira case broke, the explanations from the board of directors were few, beyond the fact that Laporta was convincing due to the categoricalness with which he spoke. Patricia Highsmith explained it in her book Suspense: "If the writer is able to express the plot well and surprise the reader with unexpected elements, logically the plot improves." Yesterday there were no surprises, but at least the argument, for now, she endured. Even more than that of the Barça coach when, after drawing in Getafe, he declared that they were not used to playing in the sun and that he was answered by the rival coach, saying: “Well, let them wear Nivea”. But faith is not what it used to be and there are things that not even sunscreen protects.
