The ‘Negreira case’, which threatens Barça with its exclusion from European competitions for a season and the continuity of Joan Laporta in the Barça presidency, experienced a new chapter this Sunday that also leaves the relationship of the culé club with Real Madrid touched in their joint fight for the Super League project against UEFA. When Real Madrid felt “harmed” by alleged arbitration favors to Barcelona, the board of directors of the entity chaired by Florentino Pérez agreed this Sunday to appear as a private prosecution in the case, as announced the day before, and blew up Laporta .
«Culés, be calm. Barça is innocent of what they are accused of and the victim of a campaign against their honor in which everyone is now involved,” Laporta wrote on his Twitter account after Real Madrid’s official decision to take action against their eternal rival. after having demarcated from LaLiga’s position. The club employers already announced last month that they would request to appear in court proceedings to try to clarify the biggest scandal in the history of Spanish football.
The federative body chaired by Luis Rubiales and the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) will also demand it, to defend the cleanliness of football and the integrity of the referees, put into question when it was revealed a month ago that Barcelona paid between 2001 and 2018 seven million euros to Enríquez Negreira. The Government, through the Higher Sports Council (CSD), could also appear as a private prosecution, while Laporta, without yet offering the explanations that are required of him, insists that everything is part of an operation to discredit Barcelona.
«No surprise, we will defend Barça and demonstrate the innocence of the club. Many will have to rectify”, Laporta ventured, along with the hashtag ‘Tots Units Fem Força’, the motto of the Catalan club (‘Todos Unidos Hacemos Fuerza’). The top Barca leader, who will be summoned as a witness in the ‘Negreira case’, reacted on social networks an hour after Real Madrid issued a statement in which he confirmed that “in defense of his legitimate interests, he will appear at the procedure as soon as the judge opens it to the injured parties.
The club chaired by Florentino Pérez expresses “its deep concern about the seriousness of the events” and reiterates “its full confidence in the action of justice.” It will be the Investigating Court number 1 of Barcelona that will have to decide whether or not to admit to processing the complaint presented on Friday by the Prosecutor’s Office that accuses Barça as a legal person, the former presidents Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu, the former executives of the club Albert Soler and Óscar Grau and Negreira himself.
“Potential crimes”
Madrid alludes to “serious accusations made by the Barcelona Prosecutor’s Office on the basis of potential crimes, among others, of corruption in the sports field, within the framework of the relations established by said club with the former vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees , José María Enríquez Negreira».
The step forward that the fans demanded of Florentino Pérez could also even cause, although Barça hopes that it will not reach such an extreme, a break with Joan Laporta’s ally for the Super League, when the ‘Negreira case’ is also being investigated by UEFA. Unlike the Spanish sports institutions – very serious offenses prescribe after three years – UEFA does have the capacity to sanction the Barça club. To participate in Europe, the highest continental body requires that the clubs comply with financial ‘fair play’ and that they are not involved in cases of sports corruption, so that at the expense of the procedure that is followed in the courts of ordinary justice, the danger for Barcelona it is evident.
The ‘Negreira case’ also provoked this Sunday the public reaction of Diego Pablo Simeone and an enigmatic phrase from the Atlético coach, commenting that “when a door opens, a window also opens.” “We are hopeful that the issue will be resolved so that we can understand it and we can all compete with the same tools,” claimed the Argentine coach.