Faith moved mountains in the distant past, in our time it is emotions that cause earthquakes. Listening to Joan Laporta giving explanations about the Negreira case, the feeling is that his arguments did not bring anything new. Or he didn't say anything he hadn't said before, because Barça didn't pay to have a sporting advantage, that Barça fans have been suffering for two months from a smear campaign that has nothing to do with reality and that the 'The Tax Agency has not been able to demonstrate that the payments made could have affected any result. His intervention was a mixture of pragmatism and victimhood to strengthen 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 files, which would justify the payment for 18 years to the company of Javier Negreira Romero, whose son was vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees.
Laporta pointed out Javier Tebas as the person who was having "irresponsible behavior" in this matter, calling into question the honorability of Barça without respecting the presumption of innocence. And he justified it by the club's refusal to sign with the CVC fund and by its attitude in favor of the European League. Instead, he was impeccable with Aleksander Ceferin, the president of UEFA, when he said that he had not signed up for this public lynching, validating "false hypotheses".
Two months after skipping the Negreira case, the board of directors' explanations were few, beyond that Laporta was convincing because of the resoluteness with which he spoke. Patricia Highsmith explained it in her book Suspense: "If the writer is able to express the argument well and surprise the reader with unexpected elements, logically the plot improves". There were no surprises yesterday, but at least the argument, for now, held up. More even than that of the coach of Barça when, after drawing against Getafe, he declared that they were not used to playing in the sun and that he was answered by the rival trainer, telling him: "Then put on Nivea ". But faith isn't what it used to be and there are things that even sunscreen doesn't protect against.
