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The Spanish judiciary has charged FC Barcelona, its two former presidents, and the former arbitration official, Jose Maria Enriques Negrera, with “corruption,” “breach of trust” and “falsifying commercial records” in the case of suspicious payments from the Catalan club to Negrera, according to what a Barcelona court announced Friday.

The prosecutions of the Public Prosecutor in Barcelona target the club in its legal capacity, in addition to its former presidents, Josep Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell.

The case relates to alleged payments made by Barcelona to Negrera, the former vice-president of the Technical Referee Committee, to provide the club with advice and verbal advice on referee-related topics.

Accusations were also brought against Oscar Grau and Albert Soler, two former members of Bartomeu's team.

"FC Barcelona has obtained and maintained a highly confidential verbal agreement with José María Enriques Negrera whereby he, in his capacity as Vice-President of the Technical Arbitration Committee and for money, performs actions that give preference to FC Barcelona in the decisions of the referees in the matches played by the club and therefore in the results and competitions," AFP quoted the prosecution as saying. ".

The prosecution indicated that the Catalan club paid a total of more than 7.3 million euros to Negrera between 1994 and 2018.

The accusations come just days after current Barcelona president Joan Laporta confirmed that his club had "never bought referees".

"Let's be clear that Barcelona never bought referees, and the Catalan club never had any intention of buying referees, ever," Laporta said Tuesday.

Last month, Laporta launched a violent attack on Javier Tebas, president of the Spanish Football League, accusing him of "fabricating a campaign against Barcelona."

And Tebas had considered that Laporta should resign "if he did not explain well or in a more logical way why" the club paid this money to Enriques Negrera.

AFP