Negreira denied paying the referees

José María Enríquez Negreira denied in his statement before the Tax Agency having paid the referees to favor FC Barcelona.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
22 March 2023 Wednesday 00:49
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Negreira denied paying the referees

José María Enríquez Negreira denied in his statement before the Tax Agency having paid the referees to favor FC Barcelona. This is stated in the summary of the Negreira case to which La Vanguardia has had access. The former referee assured that Barça hired him because "so they were calm that in the arbitration committee there were no decisions against Futbol Club Barcelona, ​​that everything was neutral". And when he was asked if he paid any referee, Negreira answered conclusively: "No". Between 2001 and 2018, Barça paid the amount of 7.3 million euros to Negreira's company for alleged advice on dealing with matches at arbitration level. "FC Barcelona considered that the team was being harmed and other teams were being favored. My duty was to give my opinion on the matches in terms of refereeing and players.

Barça wanted to make sure that no adverse decisions were taken and that everything was neutral", he indicated. So, when asked what his task for Barça consisted of, Negreira replied that he was going to watch the games and was informed about why certain decisions were made. In fact, he gave several examples of what his functions were: "Request that the Competition Committee not be composed entirely of judges from Madrid, that the club have an interlocutor with the Federation that takes care of institutional relations, that the club always sent representatives to the farewell tributes of Primera referees when they finished their sports career, recommend which yellow cards or expulsions could be appealed after a match, inform or warn of any institutional visit of the Federation so that the club maintains good relations institutional, keep the club informed of possible interests or disagreements between the Federation and LFP, or describe candidates to preside over the LFP".

The link between Barça and Negreira ended when he ceased to be vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees. A Treasury report included in the case indicates that between 2016 and 2019 Negreira would have had more than 550,000 euros in cash and would have made card payments of more than 130,000 euros. At the same time, the tax office points out that the ex-referee did not see an increase in his assets, thus suspecting that "he was not the only and last recipient of all the funds". In addition, there is another suspicious indication. Negreira's son, who invoiced through the company of ex-director Josep Contreras, left the advisory service and recording of arbitrations when his father left the position of vice-president of the Committee of Arbitrators.

Negreira's deal with Barça lasted 17 years. According to the Treasury, their contractual relationship began in 2001 under the presidency of Joan Gaspart. The former referee indicated that he met with Bartomeu and Rosell about six times a year. The summary includes a WhatsApp message that was exchanged with the club's head of sports, Albert Soler, who was also charged in this case in February 2017. Negreira complains about the arbitration that Barça received. "I have asked Mr. Contreras to give you the analysis of yesterday's game as soon as possible. The mistakes in decisions (penalty, disallowed goal) were in favor of FCB, it was lousy in the way they managed the game. The cards, correct except for Busquets. Remember, please, what I told you about Luis Suárez. Let's talk whenever you want." Barça received the request from the Prosecutor's Office in July 2022 and responded that Negreira no longer had a contractual relationship with the club and attributed any responsibility to the former general manager, Òscar Grau, and Albert Soler.

The same summary also includes a series of reports made by the ex-referee for Barça, which contain assessments such as the following: "Take care of Gil Manzano". "Mateu Lahoz is better now with Messi". "De Burgos Bengoetxea is very close".