{"id":65080,"date":"2023-09-28T21:59:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-28T21:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/09\/28\/headquarters-raided-as-spanish-giants-barcelona-at-the-centre-of-bombshell-12m-bribery-claims\/"},"modified":"2023-09-28T21:59:00","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T21:59:00","slug":"headquarters-raided-as-spanish-giants-barcelona-at-the-centre-of-bombshell-12m-bribery-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/09\/28\/headquarters-raided-as-spanish-giants-barcelona-at-the-centre-of-bombshell-12m-bribery-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"Headquarters raided as Spanish giants Barcelona at the centre of bombshell $12m bribery claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Police on Thursday raided Spain\u2019s football refereeing headquarters as part of a probe into claims FC Barcelona paid for favourable decisions in a fresh blow for Spain\u2019s scandal-hit football association.<\/p>\n

The search was ordered by the judge investigating the so-called Negreira case involving payments allegedly made <\/p>\n

Get all the latest football news, highlights and analysis delivered straight to your inbox with Fox Sports Sportmail. Sign up now!!!<\/a><\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

Police began the search early on Thursday at the offices of the CTA referees\u2019 technical committee located at the RFEF football federation headquarters on the outskirts of Madrid.<\/p>\n

A Barcelona court ordered the search \u201cas part of the investigation into the suspect payments made by the Catalan club\u201d to Negreira, a statement said.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors suspect that between 2001 and 2018, Barca paid millions of euros to Negreira\u2019s company Dasnil 95 to secure favourable refereeing decisions from corrupt officials.<\/p>\n

While the club admits making payments to Dasnil, it said the firm was paid to advise it on refereeing matters. It denies all wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

Also Thursday, magistrate Joaquin Aguirre said he would investigate the club and several of its former directors for bribery.<\/p>\n

The fact that Barcelona paid \u201cone of the CTA\u2019s three vice presidents through intermediary companies\u201d is not in dispute, the judge wrote in his decision.<\/p>\n

The payments, which lasted about 18 years, grew steadily \u201cfrom an initial 70,000 euros a year to 700,000 euros\u201d and stopped when Negreira left his position in 2018, he wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt stands to reason that the payments by FC Barcelona satisfied the club\u2019s interests given their duration and annual increase,\u201d Aguirre said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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.\u201d Police investigators were looking into the scope of the graft, he said. Asked about the latest developments in the case, Barcelona coach Xavi Hernandez said he\u2019d \u201cnever\u201d got the impression the club received any preferential treatment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never had the sensation that the referees favoured us, ever,\u201d he told reporters at a press conference a day before Barca\u2019s Seville clash.<\/p>\n

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Journalists wait outside the Spanish football federation headquarters where a judge on September 28, 2023 has ordered a police search at the headquarters of the Spanish refereeing committee,<\/span>Source: AFP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

– \u2018Illegal acts favouring Barca\u2019 –<\/b><\/p>\n

Prosecutors in March opened a corruption investigation over the affair, naming FC Barcelona and four others: Negreira, his son Javier Enriquez, and two of Barcelona\u2019s former presidents, Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell.<\/p>\n

They allege Barca paid more than 7.3 million euros ($12m AUD) to Negreira who was a vice president at the CTA between 1994 and 2018.<\/p>\n

The payments stopped when Negreira left the CTA following a reshuffle at the RFEF.<\/p>\n

When the money stopped, Negreira sent a letter to Bartomeu, Barca\u2019s president at the time, threatening to reveal information that would \u201cseriously harm the club\u201d if it didn\u2019t pay up.<\/p>\n

It was clear from the letter that Negreira \u201cwas aware that there had been illegal acts that favoured FC Barcelona that were quite serious\u201d, the judge said.<\/p>\n

The investigation began in spring 2022 when Spain\u2019s tax authorities identified irregularities in payments made by Dasnil 95 between 2016 and 2018.<\/p>\n

The raid comes as Spain\u2019s football federation is struggling to manage a crisis triggered by the World Cup kiss scandal in which its now disgraced former chief Luis Rubiales forcibly kissed midfielder Jenni Hermoso<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Police on Thursday raided Spain\u2019s football refereeing headquarters as part of a probe into claims FC Barcelona paid for favourable decisions in a fresh blow for Spain\u2019s scandal-hit football association. The search was ordered by the judge investigating the so-called Negreira case involving payments allegedly made Get all the latest football news, highlights and analysis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6807],"tags":[547,31587,31586,31588,4314,1429,31577,31591,10650,31580,149,31579,31578,31584,31585,31589,31582,4309,31583,27569,5962,31590,2588,4683,5978,31576,31581,2457,2902,5909],"class_list":{"0":"post-65080","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leagues-cups","8":"tag-barcelona","9":"tag-bombshell-bribery-claims","10":"tag-bribery-claims","11":"tag-corruption-investigation","12":"tag-cta","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-favourable-decisions","15":"tag-favourable-refereeing-decisions","16":"tag-football-federation","17":"tag-football-federation-headquarters","18":"tag-football-news","19":"tag-football-refereeing-headquarters","20":"tag-fresh-blow","21":"tag-illegal-acts","22":"tag-illegal-acts-favouring","23":"tag-javier-enriquez","24":"tag-joaquin-aguirre","25":"tag-josep-maria-bartomeu","26":"tag-journalists-wait","27":"tag-luis-rubiales","28":"tag-madrid","29":"tag-negreira","30":"tag-press-conference","31":"tag-province-of-barcelona","32":"tag-province-of-madrid","33":"tag-refereeing-committee","34":"tag-scandal-hit-football-association","35":"tag-southern-europe","36":"tag-spain","37":"tag-xavi-hernandez"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}