It’s certainly been another tumultuous period for Barcelona but it seems there is some good news for the Catalans with the revelation that the Spanish Treasury have found no evidence that the club has made payments to referees.
The so-called ‘Caso Negreira’ or Negreira case, centred on the findings that the Spanish league giant had been making payments totalling €7m to Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, the former vice-president of the referee’s committee, over a 17-year period.
It’s believed that this was for the purpose of gaining additional refereeing insights per Libertad Digital, however, the outlet had seen some of the reports which they detail as being ‘barely 2 or 3 pages. These documents for which Negreira charged more than 430,000 euros per year on average are extremely simple or childish, unprofessional, with poor writing and are also full of misspellings.’
It seems inconceivable that such amateurish prose could be considered as being worthy of being used for any benefit to the Catalan club.
Now, according to EFE, no evidence has been found by the Spanish treasury that Barcelona benefitted from any decisions from the officials chosen to oversee their matches.
Whilst that should come as a huge sigh of relief to the club, president Joan Laporta is sure to come out fighting again, just as he did a few weeks ago when he said, per FCBarcelona.com: “whoever tries to tarnish the history of FC Barcelona will be met by as strong a response as necessary.”
There’s sure to be more to the story, but this latest news may give the first-team the breathing space they need just to concentrate on the football as they head towards a league title.
With no outside influences to derail them now and being 12 points ahead after the Clasico win against Madrid, this next couple of months could be a procession for Xavi and Co.