Yea and I wouldn't really be surprised if a lot of the difference came from them putting more organized effort into conning the referee than other teams and referees having horribly inadequate tools to deal with that.
Official: FC Barcelona charged with Corruption over payments to former referees chief | UEFA open investigation
- Thread starter Kush
- Start date
Nah referees are famously resilient to the dark arts of Spanish football teams.
My theory is that, as usual, they need vehicles to rob from the club. Other common practice are commissions when a player is bought. But this is limited to some players, not so easy to maintain in time, etc.
You need to know that the counterpart is ok with corruption and you need to trust that person.
They probably thought that Negreira was a good fit to get some extra greens. They knew him, he was from Barcelona, he could sell legit stuff (ethical != legal) like the referees reports on a recurrent basis. His son had a company offering football services (and worked for other Spanish teams/institutions)... They pay him a lot more than those reports (typical political corruption) cost and they split the money. Not a lot of money for Barca but it can help some individuals. Then you are in a spiral that is difficult to leave.
They probably didn't even think about him in the sense of "vice president of the referees" (again, not exactly that but I won't counter that). The whole business was legal, wasn't hidden. It was reported and it paid taxes. I would imagine that if you really want to buy the referees, the only thing you will never do is leaving any trace of payments to anything related to the referees. If that isn't your intention, then you can probably be focused in how to "sell" those services legally.
Bartomeu for example did that to insult some players of the team on social networks (imagine...), so nothing new to consider. It has been an ongoing issue with Barca. Not a single referee has told a thing (and there should be dozens of retired and harmed referees who should knew this if this was a real thing). Payments were public and legal. Specially those things don't click when you imagine a bribing referee scheme.
It also explains why Barca presidents and executives are not as clear as you would expect. Because they don't want to explain that Barca wasn't bribing referees telling that the real deal was that they were robbing the club. On one hand they need to defend Barca, and on the other side they need to deflect their guilt. Money only proves corruption, but the prosecutor needs something else to prove referee bribing. If my theory is true, no bribing prove will be found and Barca will be declared innocent (or not guilty) from those charges and they would only need to deny everything and hope that no trace of inflow money is found to them.
My theory is not based in senseless love for Barca, but in the behavior of the executives in the last decades.
Another interesting stat that you won't find in a ultramadridista blog is that Barca has scored more goals in LaLiga than Real Madrid since its conception. That Barca has received less goals than Real Madrid in the history of LaLiga.
However, Real Madrid has been granted way more penalties than Barca, that Barca has suffered way more penalties than Real, than Barca has had more red cards than Real Madrid and that Barca rivals have received less red cards than Real Madrid rivals.
It means than Real Madrid scores a way bigger percentage of its goals form the penalty kick, and that Barca has historically received a way higher % of goals from the penalty kick. All that after supposed 20 years of robberies and scandals... interesting huh??
That is actually my biggest "mmmh..."
However, at that point Barca financial situation was starting (or more than that) to be, at least, worrying. Depending on that, Bartomeu himself could have some liabilities, so even if you got a slice, it doesn't seem a bad idea to stop it.
Bartomeu said that they just stopped doing that to save money and that they started to do it internally. It can be true of false (as 90% of the things he says), but that is purely circumstantial.
By the way, my last message of the day. I will probably be back tomorrow
It is nice to see theories that discard Negreira's role was to influence refereeing more than one month later we know about the existence of an official document where Negreira himself says he was offering precisely that.
This is so spot on!
Ah, yes of course. 5-7 billion people on earth (at the times of payments) and they use the ref VP for stealing money from the club. Makes sense.
Barca paid Negreira during 17 years (2001-2018) and 4 different boards. Some of these boards famously hate each other and would use, and have used anything, to harm each others reputation. And you telling when a new board came, not only they didn't say anything but they continued stealing from Barca?
If Negreira was just a means to steal money, why stop in 2018 when he stopped being the ref VP?
Why would Negreira declare that he was being paid to influence refereering when he could just declare he was helping Barca's executives steal? Which obviously would be a lesser crime.
Yeah, I don't think so, no
This is insane. Why wasn't this ref investigated?
My theory is that, as usual, they need vehicles to rob from the club. Other common practice are commissions when a player is bought. But this is limited to some players, not so easy to maintain in time, etc.
You need to know that the counterpart is ok with corruption and you need to trust that person.
They probably thought that Negreira was a good fit to get some extra greens. They knew him, he was from Barcelona, he could sell legit stuff (ethical != legal) like the referees reports on a recurrent basis. His son had a company offering football services (and worked for other Spanish teams/institutions)... They pay him a lot more than those reports (typical political corruption) cost and they split the money. Not a lot of money for Barca but it can help some individuals. Then you are in a spiral that is difficult to leave.
They probably didn't even think about him in the sense of "vice president of the referees" (again, not exactly that but I won't counter that). The whole business was legal, wasn't hidden. It was reported and it paid taxes. I would imagine that if you really want to buy the referees, the only thing you will never do is leaving any trace of payments to anything related to the referees. If that isn't your intention, then you can probably be focused in how to "sell" those services legally.
Bartomeu for example did that to insult some players of the team on social networks (imagine...), so nothing new to consider. It has been an ongoing issue with Barca. Not a single referee has told a thing (and there should be dozens of retired and harmed referees who should knew this if this was a real thing). Payments were public and legal. Specially those things don't click when you imagine a bribing referee scheme.
It also explains why Barca presidents and executives are not as clear as you would expect. Because they don't want to explain that Barca wasn't bribing referees telling that the real deal was that they were robbing the club. On one hand they need to defend Barca, and on the other side they need to deflect their guilt. Money only proves corruption, but the prosecutor needs something else to prove referee bribing. If my theory is true, no bribing prove will be found and Barca will be declared innocent (or not guilty) from those charges and they would only need to deny everything and hope that no trace of inflow money is found to them.
My theory is not based in senseless love for Barca, but in the behavior of the executives in the last decades.
Another interesting stat that you won't find in a ultramadridista blog is that Barca has scored more goals in LaLiga than Real Madrid since its conception. That Barca has received less goals than Real Madrid in the history of LaLiga.
However, Real Madrid has been granted way more penalties than Barca, that Barca has suffered way more penalties than Real, than Barca has had more red cards than Real Madrid and that Barca rivals have received less red cards than Real Madrid rivals.
It means than Real Madrid scores a way bigger percentage of its goals form the penalty kick, and that Barca has historically received a way higher % of goals from the penalty kick. All that after supposed 20 years of robberies and scandals... interesting huh??
That is actually my biggest "mmmh..."
However, at that point Barca financial situation was starting (or more than that) to be, at least, worrying. Depending on that, Bartomeu himself could have some liabilities, so even if you got a slice, it doesn't seem a bad idea to stop it.
Bartomeu said that they just stopped doing that to save money and that they started to do it internally. It can be true of false (as 90% of the things he says), but that is purely circumstantial.
By the way, my last message of the day. I will probably be back tomorrow
thanks for the detail
it’s actually the most plausible explanation I’ve heard that doesn’t involve them cheating with refs
but it still feels hard to believe they would choose this guy to embezzle money.. there must be loads of other ways to do it that don’t make it look like you’re cheating on a grandiose scale
Barca almost 60 penalties ahead of 2nd place, Real and Espanyol at the bottom.Differential of Red Cards La Liga 2004-2019
Just watch this.
The statistical chances of this happening *AND* the payments being a coincidence... not sure my Math and Engineering degrees is enough
Yeah, nothing to see here folks.
I'm baffled this story is only getting so huge now after the payments were made public. Looking at the statistics it should've been clear that something wrong is going on.
But maybe I didn't pay enough attention. I read occasionally about Real fans saying that Barca was favored by the refs, but also the other way around. And isn't it just typical banter? United, City and Liverpool fans would all swear that their opponents get treated better by the refs.
Wait, is the explanation for the payments "we were not trying to cheat for Barca, we were stealing money from Barca"?
This was actually not so abnormal at the time.
Funny you can see a Piqué pen there. When this scandal was revealed the current ref committee made a press conference.
In it some reporter asked the current ref president how was it possible that Barca had 0 penalties against them on two whole consecutive years.
The ref president just said: if Barca didn't have any penalties against them in 2 years is simply because the refs didn't consider Barca committed any penalties on those years
No. Barcelona, Negreira, 2 former Barca presidents and 2 former high executives are charged with continued business corruption, sports fraud version. This could (probably won't) have hefty sanctions up to the dissolution of the club, cease of activities for years and up to 10 years of prison for the people involved according to recent articles. And that is without considering La Liga, UEFA and FIFA sanctions.
If they could explain it with "simply" having stolen 7M€ and no sports repercussions involved they would have already said it.
Have they (the people accused) given any explanation for the payments?
He was, they found he gave several fouls against Barcelona in that game which shows how Barcelona were wronged once again.
We know from leaked communications that there is no contract between Barcelona and Enriquez Negreira.
We know from a statement by the club that they are doing an internal investigation and that their Compliance department was unaware of the payments.
We know from the leaked invoices that the charges were for matters unrelated to 'referee reports.' The terminology used was "consulting on technical videos."
We know that the football world at large was unaware of this relationship between Barcelona and Enriquez Negreira.
We know that all the presidents have denied having any kind of relationship with Negreira or even being aware that he was the one doing any referee reports.
I think it's fair to characterize this as 'hidden.'
Chill man, we been trying to extract the same answer from this barca mouth pieces for month now, they will go round and round talk about culture science and geosociopolitics without ever answering this very direct simple questions implicative question. I been checking regularly for answers for the same questions daily.
So far only Laporta has said that Barca is innocent and that they never bribed any refs.
Bertomeu said he was the one who stopped paying the ref VP and that Laporta increased his salary (the kinda hate each other)
well no, since they'd be incriminating themselves. Embezzlment
Nah, you blame the deceased executive Josep Contreras (the one who kept 50% of a few of the payments) and claim you knew nothing.
Also embezzlement has lower sanctions, it is better than being charged for corrupting all Spanish football competitions for 18 years.
If they could I think they would do it. But it is impossible everything points to ref influencing
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ok. Cheers for the update. I was right.
It’s worrying that you believe this sentence makes sense
If your argument on why it isn't bribing referees relies on just how inefficient it seems, then your idea suffers from the exact same problems. Surely Barca presidents are aware that any improper, discovered relationship with somebody with ties to Spanish refs is going to be immidiately investigated, get a ton of attention and possibly result in massive penalties to the club and possible prison sentences for people involved. Negreira is legitimately one of the worst people I can think of to do such a scheme with, if you want to do it quietly. But then again, maybe I just need more experience in embezzlement to understand the genius of Barca presidents.
You already got an answer for that, but to reiterate: it was both hidden and the club took steps to further obfuscate the relationship. If it wasn't, then obviously it wouldn't last for 20 years without public knowledge and immidiately trigger investigation when it was discovered. Also not sure where you get legality from, if it is being currently investigated. Tax evaders file tax forms too and before those are investigated there is very little to suggest wrongdoing.
And I would imagine that if you want to siphon funds from the club, you don't team up with other club presidents you have a massively hostile relationship with. You also don't use a person that any discovered relationship with immidiately triggers an investigation.
Eh, not really. One team obviously has to have a bigger % than the other. As much as I don't think the "red card saldo" argument is that important, one interesting thing it has going for it is the massive difference between Barca and any other team in top 5 leagues. Although those numbers obviously came from a massively biased source and I can't be arsed to double check them, so there might be possibility they have been tampered with.It means than Real Madrid scores a way bigger percentage of its goals form the penalty kick, and that Barca has historically received a way higher % of goals from the penalty kick. All that after supposed 20 years of robberies and scandals... interesting huh??
What a shocker that you're handling this with the maturity of a 5-year old.
Since reading comprehension clearly isn't one of your strengths (already implied by your hilarious comments about vaccines), I have a duty to point out that @Zlaatan was saying that you were wrong.
If you need any more help let me know.
Like the rest of the Spanish league matters...
I love how the defense to all the investigations and evidence from barca fans is something along the lines "if Barcelona wanted to cheat they would do it in a different way where they wouldn't be caugh". That's the most cynical approach and when you take in consideration all the recent issues with their levers, issues to adjust to spanish league regulations, the bullying into players to take payctus, etc. they still act if their leaders where the pinnacle of ethics and justice and would do all that stuff but not pay to influence the refereeing.
In this article (in English) you can see the breakdown of Barca's payments to Negreira over the years it comes from a Barca-centered newspaper. This image is a quick summary
This article shows a report made by Negreira to Barca in 2012 regarding the ref in charge of an upcoming Clásico. Apart from measly details like the other reports we have seen it includes things like:
"Mentally he is in good shape but physically speaking he is the worst in the category"
"He likes to waive the play on, sometimes not giving fouls on the edge of the area in which the team would benefit more if he calls them. For that it's better to lay to the ground or stop the play to force him to whistle the foul."
According to this article Tebas has said:
"I don't think Barca bribed the refs. But they paid Negreira for 20 years. It feels as if they wanted to have an influence. I am definitely not saying they bribed the refs"
"in European competitions there is no prescription. UEFA could take action on national affairs if the national competition could not fight against a crime"
According to this article Negreira declared to the Spanish Tax Agency the following:
"My obligation was to give my opinion on the matches in relation to the refs and the players. Technical advice. What FC Barcelona wanted was to make sure that no decisions were made against the club, that everything was neutral"
"Thus they were sure that in the ref committee no decisions against FC Barcelona were taken, so everything was neutral"
He also declared he would deal with the Barca presidents directly and that he was also paid to make sure that the Competition Committee (responsible for player sanctions) "was not entirely made up of judges from Madrid"
This article shows a report made by Negreira to Barca in 2012 regarding the ref in charge of an upcoming Clásico. Apart from measly details like the other reports we have seen it includes things like:
"Mentally he is in good shape but physically speaking he is the worst in the category"
"He likes to waive the play on, sometimes not giving fouls on the edge of the area in which the team would benefit more if he calls them. For that it's better to lay to the ground or stop the play to force him to whistle the foul."
According to this article Tebas has said:
"I don't think Barca bribed the refs. But they paid Negreira for 20 years. It feels as if they wanted to have an influence. I am definitely not saying they bribed the refs"
"in European competitions there is no prescription. UEFA could take action on national affairs if the national competition could not fight against a crime"
According to this article Negreira declared to the Spanish Tax Agency the following:
"My obligation was to give my opinion on the matches in relation to the refs and the players. Technical advice. What FC Barcelona wanted was to make sure that no decisions were made against the club, that everything was neutral"
"Thus they were sure that in the ref committee no decisions against FC Barcelona were taken, so everything was neutral"
He also declared he would deal with the Barca presidents directly and that he was also paid to make sure that the Competition Committee (responsible for player sanctions) "was not entirely made up of judges from Madrid"
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It’s wild how two of the most succesful clubs from the two best leagues in Europe are being investigated for cheating at the same time.
It is worth highlighting this.
Some Barcelona fans act outraged and insist this is just about paying for refereeing reports.
The reason people think it's about more than that, is because the guy who got paid said so.
According to this article Barca declared to the Spanish Tax Agency:
"It cannot be stated who, on behalf of the FCB, was responsible for commissioning the services"
"No contract with the company Dasnil was formally writen down. The club does not know the details of the formalization of the verbal contract since we should go back to 2001 and the people who had to negotiate said contracts are no longer employees of the club".
Apparently Barcelona declared that the 7.3 million paid did not respond to real services. No club employee could explain the real reason for these payments, beyond the concepts included in the invoices.
-------------------
My comment: the explanations of the last 2 paragraphs are strange. Laporta says nobody in the club knows who commissioned the services nor why.
If you see the breakdown of the payments from my previous post you will see that Gaspart payed Negreira only in one year, 2001.
Laporta's board resumed the payments annually in 2005 and by 2009 he had quadrupled his salary.
He really should know why.
"It cannot be stated who, on behalf of the FCB, was responsible for commissioning the services"
"No contract with the company Dasnil was formally writen down. The club does not know the details of the formalization of the verbal contract since we should go back to 2001 and the people who had to negotiate said contracts are no longer employees of the club".
Apparently Barcelona declared that the 7.3 million paid did not respond to real services. No club employee could explain the real reason for these payments, beyond the concepts included in the invoices.
-------------------
My comment: the explanations of the last 2 paragraphs are strange. Laporta says nobody in the club knows who commissioned the services nor why.
If you see the breakdown of the payments from my previous post you will see that Gaspart payed Negreira only in one year, 2001.
Laporta's board resumed the payments annually in 2005 and by 2009 he had quadrupled his salary.
He really should know why.
I don't know how that poster managed to turn the Barcelona corruption thread into a vaccine topic! But I guess they mean this.
https://www.bmj.com/content/377/bmj.o1565
Anyway, back on topic. Are Barcelona still cheating?
I stated a fact. It is the truth. Had two.jabs myself previously
Aww. Your so kind and gentle. Since facts isn't one of yours, you can make your own Obs at the government website. I don't care about feckin Zlaatan, some random on a forum. Inabit.
I could've sworn that this was a Barcelona thread.
Think it has evolved towards a more general "folks that uphold their own truths and ignore common sense"-topic. Maybe we should change the title.
You are catching on.
This is why Barcelona fans should stop hanging onto every word this man says. He is a lying slimey cnut. He should be forced from his position and banned from football. There’s so much overwhelming evidence that they benefitted from the referees and not just by a little bit, penalties, red cards.. anyone still denying anything wrong is deluded.
I agree with Tebas that they probably didn’t bribe the referees, they didn’t need to, they just kept them sweet. It’s the modern day equivalent of slipping cash into someone’s pocket, smiling at them as they tap their shoulder and walk off. No words are needed.
Laporta needs to be kicked out of football. Simple.
My theory is that, as usual, they need vehicles to rob from the club. Other common practice are commissions when a player is bought. But this is limited to some players, not so easy to maintain in time, etc.
You need to know that the counterpart is ok with corruption and you need to trust that person.
They probably thought that Negreira was a good fit to get some extra greens. They knew him, he was from Barcelona, he could sell legit stuff (ethical != legal) like the referees reports on a recurrent basis. His son had a company offering football services (and worked for other Spanish teams/institutions)... They pay him a lot more than those reports (typical political corruption) cost and they split the money. Not a lot of money for Barca but it can help some individuals. Then you are in a spiral that is difficult to leave.
They probably didn't even think about him in the sense of "vice president of the referees" (again, not exactly that but I won't counter that). The whole business was legal, wasn't hidden. It was reported and it paid taxes. I would imagine that if you really want to buy the referees, the only thing you will never do is leaving any trace of payments to anything related to the referees. If that isn't your intention, then you can probably be focused in how to "sell" those services legally.
Bartomeu for example did that to insult some players of the team on social networks (imagine...), so nothing new to consider. It has been an ongoing issue with Barca. Not a single referee has told a thing (and there should be dozens of retired and harmed referees who should knew this if this was a real thing). Payments were public and legal. Specially those things don't click when you imagine a bribing referee scheme.
It also explains why Barca presidents and executives are not as clear as you would expect. Because they don't want to explain that Barca wasn't bribing referees telling that the real deal was that they were robbing the club. On one hand they need to defend Barca, and on the other side they need to deflect their guilt. Money only proves corruption, but the prosecutor needs something else to prove referee bribing. If my theory is true, no bribing prove will be found and Barca will be declared innocent (or not guilty) from those charges and they would only need to deny everything and hope that no trace of inflow money is found to them.
My theory is not based in senseless love for Barca, but in the behavior of the executives in the last decades.
Another interesting stat that you won't find in a ultramadridista blog is that Barca has scored more goals in LaLiga than Real Madrid since its conception. That Barca has received less goals than Real Madrid in the history of LaLiga.
However, Real Madrid has been granted way more penalties than Barca, that Barca has suffered way more penalties than Real, than Barca has had more red cards than Real Madrid and that Barca rivals have received less red cards than Real Madrid rivals.
It means than Real Madrid scores a way bigger percentage of its goals form the penalty kick, and that Barca has historically received a way higher % of goals from the penalty kick. All that after supposed 20 years of robberies and scandals... interesting huh??
That is actually my biggest "mmmh..."
However, at that point Barca financial situation was starting (or more than that) to be, at least, worrying. Depending on that, Bartomeu himself could have some liabilities, so even if you got a slice, it doesn't seem a bad idea to stop it.
Bartomeu said that they just stopped doing that to save money and that they started to do it internally. It can be true of false (as 90% of the things he says), but that is purely circumstantial.
By the way, my last message of the day. I will probably be back tomorrow
Care to share your stats ? I dont think anyone is trying to say Real has been a clean team, they have an especially weird history that is mangled up with politics in the past. Big teams get super friendly treatment in all leagues - it just feels like the whole Catalan empire though the past 2 decades is built on horseshit.
I’m specifically interested in the cards and penalties statistics; the ones i found, suggest both teams have similar penalties awarded (Madrid 5 or 6 more) but Barcelona conceded significantly less. The conversion rate doesnt matter in that respect (Barcelona is trailing here). Also the fact that it’s been 2 years since a penalty was awarded against them is weird at best.
Some interesting news coming from this article:
The Spanish FA (RFEF), directed by Rubiales, knew since June 2022 that the Prosecutor's Office was investigating the former VP of the Refs, Negreira.
Nine months before the case shook public opinion, the RFEF received a request for information from the Public Ministry about the former ref VP.
The Prosecutor's Office wanted to know whether Negreira was allowed to be paid at the same time from a club subject to its own discipline while holding the position of 'number two' of the referee committee (that depends of the RFEF).
The Spanish FA, directed by Rubiales, replied that there was no incompatibility by reason of his position.
-------------------------
My comment: you may ask yourself how is it possible that the president of the FA sees no incompatibility in Barca paying the ref VP??
Well, it is easy. Some months ago it was revealed that he himself was involved in similarly shady deals. He also argued that there was no incompatibility then.
Rubiales, president of the Spanish FA was in cahoots with Piqué while he was still a player and the captain of Barcelona. Basically both took part in the negotiations of the newest format of the Spanish Supercup that takes place in Saudi Arabia and therefore Piqué gets (and is still getting) a big cut for every edition of the tournament (6M€ each and every single year), we don't know how much Rubiales is making as a cut. 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. This was even covered by Barca pages: https://barcauniversal.com/gerard-p...ok-e6-million-in-saudi-arabia-super-cup-deal/
Sadly, this corrupt Rubiales who was getting rich along with Piqué while he was a player, was the fresh-blood that was supposed to change things for the better when he replaced Villar, the previous Spanish FA president and the center of the whole Villarato theory involving Barca-refs-UEFA
The Spanish FA (RFEF), directed by Rubiales, knew since June 2022 that the Prosecutor's Office was investigating the former VP of the Refs, Negreira.
Nine months before the case shook public opinion, the RFEF received a request for information from the Public Ministry about the former ref VP.
The Prosecutor's Office wanted to know whether Negreira was allowed to be paid at the same time from a club subject to its own discipline while holding the position of 'number two' of the referee committee (that depends of the RFEF).
The Spanish FA, directed by Rubiales, replied that there was no incompatibility by reason of his position.
-------------------------
My comment: you may ask yourself how is it possible that the president of the FA sees no incompatibility in Barca paying the ref VP??
Well, it is easy. Some months ago it was revealed that he himself was involved in similarly shady deals. He also argued that there was no incompatibility then.
Rubiales, president of the Spanish FA was in cahoots with Piqué while he was still a player and the captain of Barcelona. Basically both took part in the negotiations of the newest format of the Spanish Supercup that takes place in Saudi Arabia and therefore Piqué gets (and is still getting) a big cut for every edition of the tournament (6M€ each and every single year), we don't know how much Rubiales is making as a cut. 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. This was even covered by Barca pages: https://barcauniversal.com/gerard-p...ok-e6-million-in-saudi-arabia-super-cup-deal/
Sadly, this corrupt Rubiales who was getting rich along with Piqué while he was a player, was the fresh-blood that was supposed to change things for the better when he replaced Villar, the previous Spanish FA president and the center of the whole Villarato theory involving Barca-refs-UEFA
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