That is actually what I am thinking. Even if you cannot prove your innocence, put out a fecking statement to drive the narrative. Staying silent is admitting guilt. This is currently PR amateur hour.
Barcelona: Charged with corruption .... again!
- Thread starter The Boy
- Start date
They cannot drive the narrative.
@FreckBarca's posts are incredibly complete and there is still new information being released almost on a daily basis. More is expected to get known in the following days. The best thing they can do is to remain silent and hope nothing can be proved.
Barcelona put out a statement the day the news broke out, and Laporta had a little speech / conference a few days ago.
Those posts from @FreckBarca should be threadmarks as they’re excellent reference points
Beginning of one of El Mundo's articles from two days ago:
Among those who formed part of the large entourage that accompanied Barcelona president Joan Laporta to Manchester, the same diagnosis was repeated: "In Catalonia, the Negreira case is not a cause for concern. They don't talk about it. They only do so in Madrid".
They forgot to mention it is also being talked about in RedCafe
Among those who formed part of the large entourage that accompanied Barcelona president Joan Laporta to Manchester, the same diagnosis was repeated: "In Catalonia, the Negreira case is not a cause for concern. They don't talk about it. They only do so in Madrid".
They forgot to mention it is also being talked about in RedCafe
Beginning of one of El Mundo's articles from two days ago:
Among those who formed part of the large entourage that accompanied Barcelona president Joan Laporta to Manchester, the same diagnosis was repeated: "In Catalonia, the Negreira case is not a cause for concern. They don't talk about it. They only do so in Madrid".
They forgot to mention it is also being talked about in RedCafe
RedCafe is obviously part of Madrid conspiracy to sully the good name of Barcelona.
The thing that I think have gotten lost is — what is there to prove?
The definition of Bribery is more or less universal and refers to inter alia the offering … of anything of value as a means of influencing the actions of an individual holding…a position of thrust.
There have been completely misguided focus put on the circumstance whether Barcelona actually got any favors from Negreira or if he conned them — that is of course completely irrelevant. It’s of course just as illegal to bribe someone and get a favor as it is to for example bribe someone who directly takes the money to the police and makes a complaint.
It’s like this is such a extremely blatant bribe that people starts to question it. Even really subtle actions can be illegal bribes. If Barcelona calls up a relative of a ref and offer him/her any kind of job — for which the person is qualified, and get marketable pay — it’s a bribe if the reason for the job offer was the fact that the person was a relative of the ref. They paid Negreira’s company 23x as much one season as they pay for the same service today. Was he overcompensated? Then it’s 100% a done deal.
It could be a done deal that they engaged his company to start with, alone, but I am not an expert on criminal law. Criminal proceedings is one thing, but if tried by CAS after an UEFA decision, the level of proof required is much lower.
And this doesn’t even take into account all circumstancial evidence, like the info in Negreira’s fax spamming, that the payment have been disguised, the lack of an agreement (@FreckBarca do you have that one? That is also significant, you don’t pay someone 570 KEUR per year without a written agreement, it’s unheard of. It’s for example reported in those internal Barca emails saying stuff like ‘do we tell them that we don’t have an agreement or play dumb?’ etc etc etc.
Yeah, it is included in the compilation how they said they didn't have a contract and wondered if they should say so to the Tax Agency or just play dumb.
It is simply unbelievable how you can pay someone 500.000€ a year and have no formal, written contract.
Even worse if it's someone you should not be approaching unless it is through the established canals.
But that's the thing. Everything here smells fishy.
Well, there is probably some evidence that he did some actual work for them. So the idea would be, use the existence of this work to claim that this was legitimate work, just overpaid. Overpaying is not a bribe, it could just be bog standard corruption.
Surely paying him in itself is against the rules? Obvious conflict of interest. The circumstances around the payments are so clearly, blatantly dodgy it hardly matters.
Part of me is kind of wondering what they're waiting for in terms of punishment too.
One could only wonder how deep this swampy rabbit hole could go.
Thanks for keeping us updated , love to see them crumble.
Brilliant work. Get this guy promoted Mods
I guess they are hoping the prosecution doesn't find enough proofs to file a demand.
Tebas already said all possible sporting crimes are prescribed.
That would only leave UEFA and FIFA (where I think the prescription doesn't happen until 10 years have passed) but they are (or used to be prior the super league) big friends with them, so..
Yes. Although an obvious conflict of interest happened in another dodgy case regarding Barca, only some months ago, and nothing came out of it:
Piqué was in cahoots with Luis Rubiales (current president of Spanish FA) while he was an active player and the captain of Barcelona. Basically he took part in the negotiations of the newest format of the Spanish Supercup that takes place in Saudi Arabia and therefore gets (and is still getting) a big cut for every edition of the tournament (6M€ each and every single year iirc).Proof.
If Piqué as an intermediary is earning that much, you have to wonder how much Rubiales is earning thanks to Piqué's negotiation.
Piqué resigned quietly in the middle of this season when all this surfaced and now everyone has forgotten about it. Rubiales never resigned and still holds the job.
Sadly, this Luis Rubiales was the fresh-blood that was supposed to change things for the better when he replaced Villar.
Villar, the previous Spanish FA president, is currently under investigation in "Caso Soule" regarding 22M€. A case in which Josep Contreras, a recently deceased Barca executive, was also involved.
Josep Contreras has also been a talking point in the Barca-Negreira case but nothing clear has come out yet.
Last edited:
Mad to think this fella "possibly" had a part in that infamous forrest/anderlacht tie.
Guardian article about the said incident
The roots go deep.
Guardian article about the said incident
The roots go deep.
Great! An English source. I'll add it to the compilation.
It is absolutely crazy how Negreira, when he was an active ref(linesman in this case), participated in a proven sports corruption scandal. Although he pleaded innocent, because of the sudden death of the main ref nothing more was known nor could be proven.
Decades later he was involved in a embezzlement scandal regarding the Catalonian referee association.
And the scandals still follow him from his time as the Spanish ref VP.
He certainly kept himself busy.
Last edited:
As @FreckBarca said, the FA and league can't punish them for it anymore, which leaves this strictly a criminal case. For which they need to prove that the money was a bribe - or there were some sort of irregularities regarding taxes or something along those lines, as paying the guy by itself is not a criminal offence
In this video (that has English subtitles) Alfons Godall, the vicepresident of Barca 2003-2010 talks about several points:
--Barca (under Laporta's presidency) helped Villar get elected as president of Spanish FA.
--This started an era in which Barca were in good terms with the FA, with the La Liga institution and with the Referee Committee. (We recently learnt there are 6.6 millions reasons for this good relationship).
--Laporta also promoted a good relationship with the same institutions from UEFA, FIFA and the ECA.
So, who were in charge of the Referee Committees of UEFA and FIFA?
-The very same Villar was the president of FIFA's referee committee (also the VP of UEFA)
-Şenes Erzik was the deputy chairman of UEFA's Referee Committee and the Chief of Projects of UNICEF while Barca had UNICEF as a shirt sponsor.
In the very same video, the former Barca VP argues how not having such good relationships with these institutions would harm Barca from the point of view of sporting results. He specifically refers to the "saldo arbitral" or the difference in the refereeering regarding Barca and their rivals. Favourable and unfavourable ref decisions regarding Barca and their rivals.
Anyone remember what Negreira said he was getting paid for??
This "saldo arbitral" has been a fan talking point for years and, recently, is getting a little traction on Spanish press.
Jordi Mestre, another former Barca VP, has recently assured he received on his email account some of the ref reports Negreira was supposedly contracted for. He adds that 500k€ a year would be a lot to pay even for a high executive of the club and that it is suspicious that it was paid to the ref VP. He argued that it is a pipe dream to say that Barca received ref favours due to these payments. Link to the article
The 2 above points have been incorporated to the compilation that you can read below:
--Barca (under Laporta's presidency) helped Villar get elected as president of Spanish FA.
--This started an era in which Barca were in good terms with the FA, with the La Liga institution and with the Referee Committee. (We recently learnt there are 6.6 millions reasons for this good relationship).
--Laporta also promoted a good relationship with the same institutions from UEFA, FIFA and the ECA.
So, who were in charge of the Referee Committees of UEFA and FIFA?
-The very same Villar was the president of FIFA's referee committee (also the VP of UEFA)
-Şenes Erzik was the deputy chairman of UEFA's Referee Committee and the Chief of Projects of UNICEF while Barca had UNICEF as a shirt sponsor.
In the very same video, the former Barca VP argues how not having such good relationships with these institutions would harm Barca from the point of view of sporting results. He specifically refers to the "saldo arbitral" or the difference in the refereeering regarding Barca and their rivals. Favourable and unfavourable ref decisions regarding Barca and their rivals.
Anyone remember what Negreira said he was getting paid for??
This "saldo arbitral" has been a fan talking point for years and, recently, is getting a little traction on Spanish press.
Jordi Mestre, another former Barca VP, has recently assured he received on his email account some of the ref reports Negreira was supposedly contracted for. He adds that 500k€ a year would be a lot to pay even for a high executive of the club and that it is suspicious that it was paid to the ref VP. He argued that it is a pipe dream to say that Barca received ref favours due to these payments. Link to the article
The 2 above points have been incorporated to the compilation that you can read below:
Last edited:
The Manchester United curse at work.
It seems we have broken them - they lost to lowly little Almeria tonight having been unbeaten in 18 matches before Thursday. Shame.
Beginning of one of El Mundo's articles from two days ago:
Among those who formed part of the large entourage that accompanied Barcelona president Joan Laporta to Manchester, the same diagnosis was repeated: "In Catalonia, the Negreira case is not a cause for concern. They don't talk about it. They only do so in Madrid".
They forgot to mention it is also being talked about in RedCafe
People should ask El Mundo how they got their hands on Messi's full contract, when the only people having access are Messi himself, Barca and LaLiga, meaning Tebas. That would be a story worth telling on how they operate.
By the way, Lewy is also injured now for ~2 weeks. Now we play the first clasico without our 3 key players Lewy, Dembele and Pedri. Without them, we're at least 50% weaker. I see it, we bottle the season in march. The same happened in the CL group stage with our 3 key defenders.
By using features like "Share" and "Add CC".
It is quite obviously false that only 3 people in the world have access to Messi's contract. It's a football contract, not a state secret.
Please do not distract. Barca is obviously once again the victim of a large-scale conspiracy.
Does anyone really care about that stuff? Manchester City crying about being hacked and its not fair to use that information against them too. Stop fecking cheating and there'll be nothing to report.
Law firms were most likely involved too, and while they obviously have NDAs and confidentiality agreements, it's easy to leak stuff without raising any red flags, especially when you have so many parties involved. I saw Ibra's contract back when he was at PSG, I shouldn't have but someone who wasn't particularly scrupulous in one of the parties involved, and I wasn't even looking to find this info. It happens.
There have been quite a lot of games where I think the referee was favoring their play style. Like disrupting the flow of the game early on if the opposing team by marking a lot of fouls and slowly concede possession to Barcelona. It can be very frustrating and teams will revert by to defend as they won't get the same protection when they're dispossed of the ball.
Perhaps the same people who leaked the internal mails about the lack of a contract with the external supplier?
This can be subjective, specially as a Real Madrid supporter, I also have the feeling some teams go all out aganist us and play more conservative against Barcelona. Although I have to give credit to teams such as Espanyol, Real Sociedad and some times Athletic Club will play to win when they're at home.
The xGA stats for Real Madrid and Barcelona are pretty similar this season. 18.8 to 20.4. So clearly teams are shooting at Barcelona's net.
Cumulative xGA is a bit tricky when you are not conceding many goals, but at the very least it means you are not conceding goals you "shouldn't".
Cumulative xGA is a bit tricky when you are not conceding many goals, but at the very least it means you are not conceding goals you "shouldn't".
Their playstyle forces teams to be conservative. Your striker wont get past the halfway line without being offside and they have 4 midfielders to pin you to the edge of your box. They're quite good midfielders too.
Having a forward who can trouble Araujo in a duel is a high bar to cross to threaten them. Having 4/5 forwards trained in pressing for months with a few of them naturally well disposed to it and no weak links to exploit is a high bar to cross to trouble them playing out.
And the various bits of shithousing and cheating is an obstacle too.
Almeria and others will continue to struggle against them odd goal aside. Bayern will pick them apart and wont be in the least bit troubled by an 18 year old left back and Raphinha
Yes the real victims here are Barcelona.
You forget that agents and third parties will also have access to Messi’s contract and people with their own agendas can easily release this information.
Bravo @FreckBarca amazing posts! Thank you for showing how dirty and cnutish of a club is UEFAlona. What irks me the most, is how Barcelocas speak of “valors” as if they were an example of morality and values, when in reality they are just a bunch of cheating cnuts.
feck UEFAlona, team of cnuts.
feck UEFAlona, team of cnuts.
Barca make questionable payments to some guy who holds very strong position in the ref association,
Barca fans - "look at how many decisions that went against us", "How did some xyz paper know about Messi contract".
Somebody leaked obviously.
With the fckin circus that surrounds the presidential race for that club there's a good chance the leak of messis contract came from Barcelona themselves trying to play some 4D chess shit. They're a soap opera
I mean this is absolutely the case and anybody but barca fans has known this all along
Truer words were never spoken. They are full of scandals and shady deals. At the same time they like to pretend they are the inventors of true football and therefore they should win all competitions and if they do not it's because they were somehow oppressed.
Last edited:
In this post I am going to discuss why Barca fans act like they do regarding ref performances. You know what I mean, we have all seen Nieman's posts from his great book of grudges where the ref didn't act like he wanted him to.
Simply put, they are spoiled and misled. I will tell you why:
Barca fans are spoiled because:
--As we all know, they paid 6.6M€ to the ref VP (Negreira) and his son for 18 years. Those two seem to have influenced refs in their favour. This is explained in detail in the compilation.
--Refs do make mistakes, this is obvious. But for years the refs that made a mistake that harmed Barca got demoted or punished, and the ones that mistakenly benefited Barca got promoted. It was the other way around for their rivals in La Liga. This article (in Spanish) contains 22 examples during the time when Negreira (Barca paid him 6.6M€) was the ref VP and the ref evaluator-reviewer, and Villar (Barca friend) was the president of Spanish FA.
Again, this is not a problem about ref mistakes, to err is human. The problem is how those mistakes got stimulated or punished based on what teams they affected.
Barca fans are misled because:
--When Negreira stepped down as the ref VP in 2018 he started working in Mundo Deportivo (for those who don't know, Mundo Deportivo is the biggest Barca-centered newspaper in Spain). In this newspaper Negreira analyzed the ref performances for the whole 2019-2020 season. Coming from a Barca newspaper and written by a guy who earned millions thanks to Barca you can imagine the level of bias Barca fans learned from. Proof of this
--In the same year his son worked for TV also analysing ref performances while being employed by Barca (according to his own CV). He is the same guy who told some refs:
“You already know: here, calm down. Barcelona has a lot at stake and you can´t hesitate. You are more than prepared. You know exactly what you have to do." In this video he reviews the ref performance in a Clásico.
This happened over 18 years. You can just imagine the level of bias Barca fans took in thinking all was neutral and objetive.
Simply put, they are spoiled and misled. I will tell you why:
Barca fans are spoiled because:
--As we all know, they paid 6.6M€ to the ref VP (Negreira) and his son for 18 years. Those two seem to have influenced refs in their favour. This is explained in detail in the compilation.
--Refs do make mistakes, this is obvious. But for years the refs that made a mistake that harmed Barca got demoted or punished, and the ones that mistakenly benefited Barca got promoted. It was the other way around for their rivals in La Liga. This article (in Spanish) contains 22 examples during the time when Negreira (Barca paid him 6.6M€) was the ref VP and the ref evaluator-reviewer, and Villar (Barca friend) was the president of Spanish FA.
Again, this is not a problem about ref mistakes, to err is human. The problem is how those mistakes got stimulated or punished based on what teams they affected.
Barca fans are misled because:
--When Negreira stepped down as the ref VP in 2018 he started working in Mundo Deportivo (for those who don't know, Mundo Deportivo is the biggest Barca-centered newspaper in Spain). In this newspaper Negreira analyzed the ref performances for the whole 2019-2020 season. Coming from a Barca newspaper and written by a guy who earned millions thanks to Barca you can imagine the level of bias Barca fans learned from. Proof of this
--In the same year his son worked for TV also analysing ref performances while being employed by Barca (according to his own CV). He is the same guy who told some refs:
“You already know: here, calm down. Barcelona has a lot at stake and you can´t hesitate. You are more than prepared. You know exactly what you have to do." In this video he reviews the ref performance in a Clásico.
This happened over 18 years. You can just imagine the level of bias Barca fans took in thinking all was neutral and objetive.
Last edited:
Tebas just said they won’t be allowed to buy in the summer and they have to sell