FC Barcelona Charged With Bribery For Referee Payments, Face Champions League Exclusion: Reports

FC Barcelona have been charged with bribery for payments made to the former vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) – Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira – over a 17-year period according to El Debate, in developments that could eventually result in the club being banned from the Champions League.

Barca paid €7.5 million ($7.9 million) to companies owned by Negreira from 2001 to 2018. This takes in current president Joan Laporta’s first reign as the club’s leader, but Laporta has claimed on numerous occasions that the payments were honestly for consultation work.

The Catalans were charged for “continued corruption between individuals in the sports field” by the Barcelona provincial prosecutor’s office in March which prompted UEFAEFA -0.2% to open its own investigation.

In late July, the European football governing body revealed Barca were “provisionally admitted to take part” in its highest level club competition, the Champions League, but made sure it was known that a “future decision on admission/exclusion” was still possible.

The start of September saw El Mundo reveal that Spain’s Civil Guard had concluded in a report requested by the court that referees under the watch of the CTA’s former president Victoriano Sanchez Arminio and Negreira weren’t always “unbiased”.