Police searched Spain’s football officiating headquarters on Thursday as part of an investigation into claims FC Barcelona paid for favorable verdicts, dealing another blow to Spain’s scandal-plagued football organization.
The search was authorized by the judge overseeing the so-called Negreira case, which involves alleged payments to a firm owned by former top referee Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira.
The search began early Thursday at the offices of the CTA referees’ technical committee, which are located on the outskirts of Madrid at the headquarters of the RFEF football association.
According to a statement, a Barcelona judge authorized the search “as part of the investigation into the suspect payments made by the Catalan club” to Negreira.
Prosecutors believe Barca paid millions of euros to Negreira’s company Dasnil 95 between 2001 and 2018 to gain favorable refereeing rulings from corrupt officials.
While the club agrees to paying Dasnil, it claims the payments were made to the firm to assist it on refereeing concerns. It denies any and all misconduct.
Also on Thursday, magistrate Joaquin Aguirre said he will look into bribery allegations against the club and several of its former directors.
The fact that Barcelona paid “one of the CTA’s three vice presidents through intermediary companies” is undisputed, according to the judgment.
The payments, which lasted approximately 18 years, increased rapidly “from an initial 70,000 euros a year to 700,000 euros” and ended when Negreira left his position in 2018, he said.
“It stands to reason that the payments by FC Barcelona satisfied the club’s interests given their duration and annual increase,” Aguirre stated.
“The payments resulted in refereeing decisions sought by FC Barcelona in such a way that must have involved unfair treatment of other teams and consequently systemic corruption across Spanish refereeing as a whole.”
Police investigators were looking into the scope of the graft, he said.
‘Illegal acts favouring Barca’
Prosecutors started a corruption inquiry into the case in March, citing FC Barcelona and four others, including Negreira, his son Javier Enriquez, and two previous Barcelona presidents, Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell.
They claim Barca paid Negreira, a vice president at the CTA from 1994 until 2018, more than 7.3 million euros.
The payments stopped when Negreira left the CTA following a reshuffle at the RFEF.
When the money stopped coming in, Negreira wrote to Bartomeu, Barcelona’s president at the time, threatening to divulge information that would “seriously harm the club” if the team didn’t pay up.
According to the judge, it was obvious from the letter that Negreira “was aware that there had been illegal acts that favored FC Barcelona that were quite serious.”
The investigation began in the spring of 2022, when Spanish tax authorities discovered discrepancies in Dasnil 95 payments received between 2016 and 2018.
The raid comes as Spain’s football federation struggles to deal with the fallout from the World Cup kissing incident, in which its now-disgraced former president, Luis Rubiales, forcibly kissed midfielder Jenni Hermoso.