Rosell before the judge: “With Messi and Piqué at Barça, we didn’t need to pay Negreira.”
Barcelona, Sep 18 (EFE).
Former Barça president Sandro Rosell argued before a judge on Thursday that the club did not need to pay former Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) vice president José María Enríquez Negreira to win matches, with a team that featured players of the caliber of Leo Messi and Gerard Piqué.
Rosell, along with his successor at Barça, Josep Maria Bartomeu, testified this Thursday as suspects before the judge investigating the 7.3 million euros that Barça paid between 2001 and 2018 to Enríquez Negreira and his son Javier, in an appearance in which they only answered questions from their defense, according to legal sources.
Both have argued that when Enríquez Negreira—and later his son—became president of Barça, they were already receiving fees from the club for refereeing advisory services, so they decided to maintain those jobs given that the reports were useful to the team’s coaches from a sporting perspective.
In addition to the former presidents, the former director of professional sports at Barça, Albert Soler, and the club’s former executive director, Òscar Grau, appeared before the judge this morning as defendants, as well as José María Enríquez Negreira’s son and partner, Javier Enríquez and Ana Paula Rufas.
Useful reports at market prices
Both the former presidents and directors of Barça have exercised their right to answer only questions from their defense, insisting that they were merely maintaining the sports and refereeing consulting services the club had already contracted with companies linked to Negreira and his son, because they were in the club’s interest.
According to his version, a club of Barça’s caliber should have had this refereeing advisory service, which is why they decided to maintain the relationship with the Negreiras when they became president.
They have also argued that the advisory reports were priced at market rates. In fact, Rosell has pointed out that, according to his calculations, the price of each one would not exceed 250 euros, an amount that, in his opinion, would be clearly insufficient to purchase favorable arbitrage deals.
Along the same lines, Rosell—who appeared in court slightly limping due to a recent operation—has pointed out that between 2010 and 2014, when he presided over the club, he had no need to pay Negreira to obtain the alleged refereeing benefits that the prosecution believes Barça was seeking with the payments, because it had a great team with players like Messi and Piqué.
Following his statement, Bartomeu backed Rosell’s argument before the media: the Catalan club “didn’t need any refereeing help” because “it had the best team in the world.”
“It’s become clear that all the information coming out of the refereeing is meaningless, and even with the team we had,” Josep Maria Bartomeu added.
The former presidents have also justified their involvement with a CTA member as an advisor, arguing that such ties with referees are common in other sports clubs.
Negreira’s son and his partner, Ana Paula Rufas, have distanced themselves from the Barça defense team. She is accused of money laundering for the nearly 3 million euros found in her accounts and has invoked her right not to testify, nor has she distanced herself from her defense team.
Enríquez Romero distances himself from his father
Javier Enríquez Romero, for his part, has distanced himself from his father—who at the time refused to testify as an investigator, citing the dementia he claims he suffers from—and has asserted that he was unaware of Enríquez Negreira’s dealings with Barça, to the point that he had a heated argument with him when he learned he had been paid by the club for consulting services when he was vice president of the CTA.
Negreira’s son, who signed more than 600 reports on the profiles of various referees and their officiating, explained that he was paid through Josep Contreras, a former Barça official, but that he was unaware that he in turn received a commission for his advice.
With these statements, the Negreira case enters its final stretch, with the testimony of Barça president Joan Laporta—who was exonerated by the courts because the payments in his case have expired—and former Barça coaches Luis Enrique Martínez and Ernesto Valverde playing a crucial role.
The investigating judge has postponed these three testimonies, initially scheduled for November, until December 12.
