Niemans
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https://www.epe.es/es/deportes/20230410/caso-negreira-sobresueldos-directivos-barca-85677698
The thesis gaining ground in the Negreira case: money to pay bonuses to Barça executives
The progress of the investigation dilutes the initial suspicions that the azulgrana club may have bought referees, in favor of the theory that part of the millionaire payments went back to people at the club.
On February 21, a month and a half ago, Joan Laporta broke his silence on the Negreira case, uncovered six days earlier by Cadena Ser. That day, at the Camp Nou, he announced two things: an external investigation and an explanatory press conference on his part. The first of these initiatives is underway. It is assumed. There is still no news on the second, despite the fact that the case has advanced to the point that a Barcelona court has accepted the complaint filed by the Public Prosecutor's Office.
During all these weeks, in which multiple details of the relationship between Barça and Enriquez Negreira between 2001 and 2018 have been known, Laporta has encouraged victimhood and an alleged conspiracy against the club. All this from a sentence that he has turned into the motto of his defense before the public opinion: "Barça has never bought referees".
Proven facts of the Negreira case
It happens, in fact, that the fact that he denies, which at the beginning seemed white and in bottle, is losing followers even in his staunchest enemies. It is evident (because it is proven) that Negreira received money from Barça, that a large part of the services he allegedly provided in exchange (advice and refereeing reports) lack documentary support and that the supplier was in those years vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees of the RFEF. But the thesis that the money, or part of it, ended up in the pockets of some referees to favor Barça on the field of play is losing strength.
Firstly, because, despite the social pressure to which the collective has been subjected, not a single one of the dozens of First Division referees in those almost two decades has suggested that this practice could exist. Neither by giving their name and surname to a confession nor by doing it anonymously. So far, not a single journalist following the case (and there are a lot of them) has published any information pointing in that direction. And there is not one who has not looked for it. Nor has the Treasury found any evidence in this regard.
The denunciation of Estrada Fernández
Only Xavier Estrada Fernández, Catalan and, therefore, never referee of a Barça match, has broken the unity of the group and it has been, precisely, to denounce Enríquez Negreira in court. His figure and his role in the case continues to generate controversy. The CTA is silent, so is he, and around him theories about who is behind his movement, if there is anyone. There are those who see Barça's hand behind the referee, but it is only a conjecture. Like the one that says he wants to take revenge on the CTA and the RFEF because he knew they would not renew his contract for next season. Then, however, he will be a councilor of the city council of Lleida for ERC if the May elections do not say otherwise.
Nor does it sit well with observers directly concerned with the case that there is a large referee scheme. In a League of 38 referees, they claim, a club would have to buy a large number of referees to ensure a behavior that would be meditatively beneficial to its interests. And maintaining this 'omertà' for so many years borders on the impossible.
Negreira's role in the CTA
And it cannot be overlooked that those who participated in those years in the refereeing profession emphasize that Negreira's role was residual, that he neither participated in the assignment of the referees nor decided on promotions and relegations, since he limited himself only to inform about them to the affected ones. And although this version generates doubts, it is clear that Negreira was a second-rate figure in the refereeing government.
So why did Barça, with four different presidents (Gaspart, Laporta, Rosell and Bartomeu) pay at least 7.2 million euros to Negreira? The thesis that is gaining more strength in recent days, from the analysis of the documentation that the Prosecutor's Office made available to the court, is that the former vice president of the CTA was a vehicle for Barça executives to collect, indirectly from the coffers of the club itself, bonuses in black money. Executives who, by statute, cannot receive a salary from the Barça entity.
The Tax Agency itself, in the report that it transferred to the Prosecutor's Office (and this, in turn, to the judge) already reflected that Negreira withdrew in cash 28% of the money he received from Barça between 2016 and 2018, the period initially investigated. An amount that amounts to 557,871 euros in those years and that the Treasury believes could have been destined to third parties linked to Barcelona, as reported by El Periódico de Cataluña, of the Prensa Ibérica group.
The role of Josep Contreras
The role of the late executive Josep Contreras, intermediary and commissioner of the agreements between Barça and Negreira, reinforces this theory. According to this thesis, outlined by the Treasury in its report, the money that came out of Barça's coffers would be shared between him, the former referee and, possibly, those third parties linked to the club. Some of Barça's main detractors are convinced that this was the case.
A priori, this possibility has two weaknesses. A refereeing official seems to be the least suitable person in the world to act as a vehicle to collect a salary in 'b', because in addition to the crimes of this practice, one can easily add the crime of sports corruption, as is happening. If the front man had been someone else, Barça's participation in the next Champions League would not be at risk right now.
The termination of the agreement with Negreira in 2018.
But Negreira could indeed have served as an alibi to justify the amount of those payments internally. "Barça wanted to make sure that no decisions were made against the club, that everything was neutral," he told the Treasury. That would also serve to explain the second weak point of the theory of the overpayments: the suspension of the agreement in 2018. Because if Negreira was no longer vice president of the CTA (Rubiales dismissed him as soon as he became president of the RFEF), paying him to "make everything neutral" ceased to serve as an internal alibi at Barça.
The work of the Guardia Civil, to whom the judge has entrusted the investigation, is now to find proof and evidence to fit the puzzle to discover if, as Laporta and also many of his enemies defend, "Barça has never bought referees". And if any of the directors of those 17 years ended up keeping part of the money that Barça paid to Negreira for reasons that the club has not wanted to talk about.
Maybe in a press conference. One of these months.
"The thesis gaining ground in the Negreira case: money to pay bonuses to Barça executives".
This scenario is very plausible. I'm curious about Laporta's explanation of why he multiplied the payments by 3-4.
I wouldn't be surprised if Laporta kept some of that money. Already in the first epoch he made sinister operations.
