The European Football Union (UEFA) announced today that it is launching an investigation against the Barcelona football club, due to a case of suspicious financial payments. European Football Union (UEFA) announced today that it is launching an investigation against the Barcelona football club, due to a case of suspicious financial payments.
The Catalan team was previously accused of corruption by the Spanish prosecutor’s office, since in the period from 2001 to 2018, it paid more than 7.3 million euros to the account of the company of the former vice president of the football referee commission there.
It is suspected that Barcelona paid money to José Marío Enriquez Negreira (a member of the referee organization from 1994 to 2018), so that he would influence the selection of referees for the matches of the Catalan team.
Champions League regulations, which have been in place since 2007, allow UEFA to ban teams for one season if they have been involved in match-fixing.
In addition to corruption in sports, the prosecutor’s office accused the former leaders of Barcelona, Sandro Rosello and Josep Bartomeu, of negligent management and falsification of documents. The indictment also refers to Negreira.
In an earlier statement, Barcelona rejected allegations of corruption and pointed out that it used advisory services regarding refereeing issues.
In the La Liga table, Barcelona is in first place after 26 games, and has 12 points more than second-placed Real Madrid.
