Current FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta claimed that the club did not indulge in doing anything wrong amid all the allegations being thrown towards them. Laporta clarified that all the said payments were not made to help them during matches for some advisory matters.
He denied getting any illegal advantage and remained confident with his stance of not doing anything wrong. Laporta mentioned the fact that Barcelona arranged an internal investigation which came in favor of the club.
FC Barcelona faces corruption charges over payments to former referees' officials.#FCBarcelona #Barca #Laliga #Finance #FCB #JoanLaporta #Football #SKY247 pic.twitter.com/g13NNDvy84
— Sky247 (@officialsky247) March 11, 2023
In the past couple of years we have seen UEFA as well as La Liga double down on Barcelona for fraud charges and also registering players in an illegal manner. When the latest set of allegations were made, it was being said that FCB will be stripped off from competing in Europe next season but it is not going to materialize as Joan Laporta said.
He rather suggested that all of it was made up and none of the allegations had any base and it was a act of defaming the club which has a rich history. The 60-year-old stated that La Liga chief Javier Tebas as well as Real Madrid have been planning to defame Barca and they are the ones to blame.
Spanish prosecutors filed a case against Barcelona last month about payments of 7.95 million dollars (7.3 million euros) made to companies owned by Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira between 2001 and 2018.
From 1993 to 2018, Negreira served as the Spanish Football Association’s deputy president of the refereeing committee. A court in Barcelona has consented to hear the case. In connection with the Negreira issue, UEFA has also initiated a formal investigation into possible legal violations of the organisation.
At a press conference, Laporta said that Barcelona had sought technical guidance from “someone who has had a career in football” in its contacts with Negreira.
