The Alzheimer's disease that José María Enríquez Negreira has been diagnosed with will not prevent him from having to give explanations before the judge. Magistrate Joaquín Aguirre has summoned the former vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees on February 21 to justify the reason why he received 7.5 million euros from FC Barcelona. Negreira alleged that he suffered from Alzheimer's, which would prevent him from having to testify or even appear as a defendant in the judicial process. In fact, his defense argued that he suffered from cognitive impairment that prevented him from facing criminal proceedings. However, the medical report sent to the judge maintains that although he suffers from this illness, it does not incapacitate him from being able to testify before the judge. The magistrate considers that Negreira can appear since he "retains the mental faculties to be prosecuted despite the fact that he suffers from some deterioration of his memory," he points out.
The former vice president of the CTA underwent a first medical examination at the Forensic Medical Institute on October 10 when he suffered a fall in front of television cameras as he was preparing to enter the building. The magistrate asked the forensic experts to expand his report to know the extent of the deterioration of his memory and Negreira had to undergo another medical examination. The former number two of the Referees Committee is accused in the case along with his son; the former presidents of FC Barcelona Joan Laporta, Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu, the former club executives, Òscar Grau and Albert Soler; and FC Barcelona as a legal entity. It is being investigated whether the payments of 7.5 million that Negreira received from FC Barcelona were to influence the referees and alter the competition, which would constitute a crime of sports corruption, or whether funds were diverted to benefit third parties, which would fit in the crime of unfair administration.
Negreira is the first defendant cited by the judge. Then, the rest of those investigated are expected to do so. The former number two of the referees already gave explanations to the Tax Agency when he detected suspicious payments by FC Barcelona. On that occasion, Negreira denied that he had paid the referees to benefit Barça and stressed that the club hired him because "they were calm that in the arbitration committee there were no decisions against Futbol Club Barcelona, that everything was neutral. FC Barcelona considered that the team was being harmed and other teams were being favored. My obligation was to give my opinion on the matches in terms of refereeing and the players. Barça wanted to make sure that no decisions were made against them and that everything was neutral.”
In the last report sent to the judge, the Civil Guard compiled the interrogations of 21 First Division referees in which they denied that Negreira had influenced their actions. The judge considered in one of his records that there was "possible systemic corruption within the CTA" at the time when Negreira was vice president of this organization.
