2023-05-15 00:11:12
Barcelona, May 14 (EFE).- Over the years, the 2022-23 League won by Barcelona will have the surname Negreira, because regardless of what justice ends up ruling, the case has been present in all sports or court pages from mid-February.
When at noon on February 15, from the microphones of the SER chain in Barcelona it was announced that “the Prosecutor’s Office is investigating a company of a former vice president of the referees who received payments from Barça while he was in this position…”, he had just contacted the ‘Negreira’ tsunami is marching, a case that has monopolized sports information in our country and abroad.
In the following days, more details became known, until it was determined that the Catalan entity had paid 7.3 million euros to the former vice president of the Technical Referee Committee (CTA), José María Enríquez Negreira, between 2001 and 2018, for arbitration reports and , according to Negreira himself, “for guaranteeing that neutrality was maintained in the arbitrations.”
All the LaLiga clubs, with the exception of Real Madrid, censored the case and highlighted the seriousness of the events. Not a day went by that the trickle of information did not stop pointing to the Barça club, which was trying to gain time while announcing an internal investigation.
The president, Joan Laporta, pointed out to Tebas: “The mask has already been removed, he has an obsession and phobia against our club” and insisted: “Barça has never bought referees and Barça has never had the intention of buying referees. Absolutely never” .
Three weeks later, the Prosecutor’s Office filed a complaint against FC Barcelona for “alleged corruption” in payments to the former vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA), directed against Negreira himself, the former Barça presidents Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu, and the executives Oscar Grau and Albert Soler.
Specifically, the complaint focused on the alleged crimes of corruption between individuals in the sports field, unfair administration and documentary falsification.
And meanwhile, the championship continued and Barcelona continued to dominate LaLiga with an iron hand and each day saw a title that had eluded them since they won it in the 2018-19 season, with Ernesto Valverde on the bench and Leo Messi, closer. and Luis Suárez as stars.
The RFEF, the Spanish government and Real Madrid appeared in the LaLiga case… UEFA also opened an investigation and Barcelona began to think that it was going to be left without participating in the Champions League next year, although it was will take the league title.
At that time, Barcelona, wherever they played or where they did not play, received hostile treatment. In San Mamés, counterfeit bills were distributed with the FC Barcelona shield, the dollar symbol and the word mafia.
At the Bernabéu, 500-euro bills with Laporta’s face were thrown before the first leg of the classic cup bearer and chants such as “Always stealing, Barça always stealing!”, “Laporta, drop your money!” or “Corruption in the Federation!”.
During Barcelona’s visit to Getafe, the insults against Barça and Catalonia were reproduced, and a banner with the motto: “Corrupt bastards” was displayed.
It was not necessary for Xavi Hernández’s men to play for chants to be reproduced against the Catalans, like those experienced in Seville during a match against Almería.
Barça publicly stated its position two months later, on April 17, at a massive press conference held by Laporta, in which he insisted that the club he presides over “has never carried out any action that was intended or with the intention of altering competition in order to have a sporting advantage”.
He also accused Real Madrid of being “the regime team” and of carrying out an exercise in “unprecedented cynicism” for appearing in the cause of the ‘Negreira case’.
A video of Real Madrid crossing out the eternal rival as the team of the Franco regime was the response of the white entity that same night. The Generalitat of Catalonia described it as ‘fake news’ and “indecent” and requested its immediate withdrawal.
A few days later, Laporta traveled to Slovenia to visit the UEFA president, Aleksander Ceferin, and give him explanations about the Negreira case, knowing that if Barça is left out of the Champions League next season, they could lose an amount ranging between the 80 million and the 100 million euros.
And up to here. Since that April 20, the dripping of information about the Negreira case has stopped and Barcelona began to discount to win its twenty-seventh League, which it has ruled with an iron hand throughout the season.
The investigation is ongoing and it has been leaked that UEFA does not intend to leave Barça without European competition next season, although everything moves in the field of speculation, something that has been common since the beginning of the case.
It all started less than three months ago and is supposed to end in a few years. Now the noise has stopped momentarily to let the ball keep rolling, a good sign for Barça, which has easily won a new championship.
#twentyseventh #Blue #League #Black #Tsunami