referees

“It has not been proven.” The latest report from the Civil Guard incorporated into the summary of the Negreira casewhich investigates the million-euro payments from FC Barcelona to the former vice-president of the Technical Arbitration Committee (CTA) José María Enríquez Negreira, concludes that “at this stage of the investigation” there is no evidence that the 7.5 million euros that the three companies linked to him and his son, Javier Enríquez Romero, received between 2001-2018 “were intended to provide alleged ‘consultations’ in arbitration matters”. In the 168-page document, to which EL PAÍS has had access, the armed institute suggests that the real objective of said payments were not these reports ―which are not recorded as having been used “by any department of the club, including the technical staff” and there is no documentary trace―, but rather to allegedly reward arbitration favours, although the investigators do not state this at any point with certainty.

The police document, called “final”, highlights that “a considerable part of the income received in the bank accounts of the companies controlled by the Enríquez, was withdrawn in cash by means of bearer checks, not knowing, at this stage of the investigation, the final destination of these funds”. And it highlights that a personal friend of the former vice president of the arbitrators cashed checks for amounts never exceeding 3,000 euros “on his behalf, to whom he delivered the full amount” either directly or through his secretary. The police document also highlights that Enríquez Negreira’s current partner, Ana Paula Rufas, received between 1992 and 2023 in her bank accounts close to 3 million euros, an amount that she considers unjustified “due to the income and returns from work and movable capital” that is recorded about her. Much of that money was taken out with cash withdrawals until some deposits were left at zero.

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The Civil Guard reports, based on statements made by the referees who testified as witnesses, that Enríquez Negreira was influential in this group, both because of his position as vice-president and because of his affinity with the then top CTA leader, Victoriano Sánchez Arminio, “with whom he had a very close relationship and who had his complete trust”. The investigators point out that this gave him a great capacity for influence – one witness went so far as to say that “they saw him as a boss and he commanded respect” – since, among other functions, he was personally in charge of informing the referees of promotions and demotions in category and reviewing the scores that they decided. “His figure did not go unnoticed nor was he a mere statutory position”, the report emphasises, adding that his influence covered the regional and national sphere.

The police document highlights as “one of the most decisive indications” of the alleged irregularities the “anomalous and incongruous” justification that FC Barcelona gave for the millionaire payments to the former vice president of the CTA as a way of “guaranteeing” that the decisions of the referees during the competition “were neutral”. “Taking as a premise and axiom the neutrality of the Technical Committee of Referees in its management and decisions within its area of ​​responsibility, a financial transaction originating in a club that was part of the sports competition to precisely guarantee the aforementioned neutrality would not be justified”, the agents conclude. And they recall that these payments were made without there being any “signed contract” between the club and the companies linked to Enríquez Negreira and his son.

The investigators point out as “relevant” that the club’s payments ceased in 2018, together with the moment in which he was dismissed as vice-president of the CTA and, as a result of that, the burofax in which Enríquez Negreira sent to the then president of FC Barcelona José María Bartomeu, in which he went so far as to “warn” him that if an agreement was not reached he would be forced “to publicize all the irregularities that he had learned of and experienced first-hand within FC Barcelona”.

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