FC Barcelona accused of paying €1.4 million to former LaLiga referee, club denies wrongdoing

After being accused of paying Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, a former vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees, €1.4 million ($1.5 million) during the administration of former president Josep Bartomeu, FC Barcelona may be subject to severe punishments, such as being dropped from La Liga or having points deducted.

From 1994 until 2018, Negreira served in his current position at the Royal Spanish Football Federation. According to the Barcelona Prosecutor's Office, Barca allegedly sent the sum to a business he operated called DASNIL 95 between 2016 and 2018.

The former La Liga referee Negreira got payments from DASNIL 95 totaling €532,728.02 ($571,000) in 2016, €541,752 ($580,000) in 2017, and ultimately €318,200 ($341,000) in 2018. This information was provided by the SER Catalunya radio program Que t'hi jugues on Wednesday afternoon.

Negreira and his son have disputed that Barca has ever received any special treatment as a result of refereeing decisions during their testimony before the prosecutor's office.

They contend that Negreira's advising work on proper player conduct toward referees and his advice on what they can and cannot do depending on which official was supervising a particular game led to the payment of the money.

Yet according to reports, Negreira has not yet been able to present any documentation demonstrating that he rendered these kinds of services for FC Barcelona.

The club released a statement in response to the disclosure. It acknowledged that it had employed a "external technical consultant," but it denied any wrongdoing. It also expressed regret that the news had come as Barca was once again in the lead in La Liga by about 11 points.

"Given the information broadcast today on the SER Catalunya program Què t'hi jugues, FC Barcelona, ​​aware of the fact that the Prosecutor's Office is investigating in relation to payments made to external companies, wants to make it clear:

That FC Barcelona hired the services of an external technical consultant in the past, who supplied, in video format, technical reports referring to lower-category players in Spain for the Club's technical secretariat," it began.

"Additionally, the relationship with the external provider itself was extended with technical reports related to professional arbitration in order to complement the information required by the coaching staff of the first team and the reserves, a common practice in professional football clubs.

"Currently, this type of outsourced services falls to a professional assigned to the Soccer Area. FC Barcelona regrets that this information appears precisely at the best sporting moment of this season," it concluded, while promising legal action against "anyone who spoils the Club's image with possible insinuations against the entity's reputation that may arise as a result of this information".