The judge swerves and changes the course of the investigation into the Negreira case. Where before he saw sports corruption, a crime for which it is necessary to prove that the competition was altered, he now charges a crime of bribery, a type of criminal offense for which it is enough to consider as illicit the accredited payments that Barça made to José María Enriquez Negreira.
The head of the investigating court 1 of Barcelona, Joaquín Aguirre, issued an order yesterday in which he notified FC Barcelona and the rest of those investigated, Sandro Rosell, Josep Maria Bartomeu, Òscar Grau, Albert Soler and Negreira father and son, that they pass to also be charged with continued bribery. This crime punishes a public official who accepts money to carry out an act contrary to the exercise of his position. And, according to the judge, the public official who was bribed is José María Enríquez Negreira.
The magistrate believes that he can apply this crime by considering that Negreira criminally holds the status of public official since the Federation is a private entity but with a public function. “The Spanish Football Federation has the status of a public-legal entity for criminal purposes and its directors, including those who are part of technical commissions, must be considered public officials for criminal purposes,” he points out. If confirmed, it would be the first time in history that a Federation official is considered a public official and accused of bribery. In the case of Negreira, vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA).
With the application of this criminal offense, those investigated could face higher prison sentences. Sports corruption contemplated a maximum sentence of four years in prison while bribery reached six. The statute of limitations for the crime is longer and the investigation could extend until 2008, reaching the first term of Joan Laporta, a fact that could force the current president to parade through the court along with Rosell and Bartomeu. For this, however, it is still early. First, the appeals that the lawyers of those investigated against this decision will be presented by the lawyers must be resolved and one of the parties should demand that Laporta be charged. In the case of Barça, as a legal entity, whether it receives a conviction for bribery or sports corruption, it would have to face a fine, possible judicial intervention and in an extreme case, dissolution.
However, the inclusion of bribery places the Negreira case in a new dimension: if the whole matter goes to trial, it would be held before a popular jury and nine ordinary people, chosen by the accusations and the defense, among whom is the Barça, but also Madrid and the League, should decide whether to condemn Barça and its former presidents.
In the case at the moment there is nothing different from what was already there in March, when the Prosecutor's Office filed the complaint accusing the club of buying referees.
Although no new evidence has appeared, the judge writes that the payments of 7.3 million from FC Barcelona to Negreira over 17 years “satisfied the interests of the club in view of their duration and the annual increase” and “produced the effects referees desired by FC Barcelona.” The magistrate also has no doubt that Barça paid Negreira "for the position he held as vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA)" and rules out that he provided any type of verbal advice, as Negreira himself argued before the Treasury. In this regard, the judge describes as “inadmissible” that a vice president of the CTA “advises a specific First Division team” and emphasizes that his figure should “be impartial and have equitable treatment with all teams.” “It is incompatible with the natural exercise of the position that he receives a large annual remuneration without a contract that serves as support to carry out a monitoring function of the referees who directed FC Barcelona and who were under the orbit of his authority,” he says.
In parallel, the judge yesterday ordered the Civil Guard to search the CTA headquarters to obtain the minutes of the meetings in which Negreira participated and determine his decision-making capacity. The current president of the CTA said that Negreira lacked executive power and only held a mere representative position.
