Catalunya Ràdio reported this Thursday afternoon that Joan Laporta, president of Barça, has already sent a letter to UEFA and FIFA giving the explanations that the entity believes pertinent to justify the payments during 17 years (2001-2018) to the vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees. Those who have not yet received said letter are the members of the Barça entity despite the fact that the club slipped that a letter would be sent to them with the arguments of the club.
Always according to Catalunya Rádio, in the letter, Joan Laporta asks the organizations “not to prejudge Barça”“that they be responsible and not join in the public derision that they are suffering” and that “refrain from making public statements and allow Barça to defend itself in the open judicial process.”
Last March, FIFA President Gianni Infantino, re-elected until 2027, He had given a brief opinion on the Negreira case. “We are concerned about what is happening. We will see what happened.” But who has been most concerned is the president of UEFA, Aleksander Ceferin, who said before the recent UEFA Congress that the Negreira case was “very serious”, and that through the Ethics and Disciplinary Committee he has opened an investigation with two inspectors from his orbit (Jean-Samuel Leuba and Mirjam Koller).
Barça reacts with a letter from which it hopes to gain credibility and take advantage of not being sanctioned by UEFA for the 2023-24 Champions League. Once sent to both institutions, the partners also await responses. The club slipped that it would inform its social mass by mail but for the moment that has not happened.
At the moment, and apart from this investigation by the UEFA Ethics and Disciplinary Committee (as reported this week by Mundo Deportivo, representatives of the European organization have already gone through the Camp Nou to gather information), the judicial investigation against FC Barcelona for the Negreira case is underway. On March 15, Judge Silvia López admitted to process the complaint of the Prosecutor’s Office against the Barcelona club for a crime of corruption in the sports field and, also, the complaint filed by Estrada Fernández against the former referee José María Enríquez Negreira and his son, Javier Enríquez. The magistrate ordered the Civil Guard on those days to carry out the necessary steps to determine the reason or work” for which Barça paid 7.3 million euros to Enríquez Negreira between 2001 and 2018 and, also, what was the “destination” of the money collected by the companies of the former vice president of the Technical Arbitration Committee (CTA).