Spanish giants Fc Barcelona demonstrated on the pitch they may have ninety-nine problems but defeating Real Madrid isn’t one of them as they came from behind to beat the team from the Spanish capital for the third time this season in 2-1 victory thanks to a late goal from Franck Kessie. The win was Xavi’s third against Ancelotti’s men this season making him only the first Barcelona manager to win three clasicos in a single season and also see them extend their lead at the top of the table to 12 points with 12 games left to play.
Chaos off the pitch seem to be more of a worry than their performances on the pitch as the Catalan side are accused of corruption over payments to former refereeing chief Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira between 2001 and 2018. These charges are the result of an inspection by Spanish tax authorities into the company DASNIL 95, which is owned by Negreira who served as the vice-president of the Spanish football’s refereeing committee between 1994 and 2018. The tax inspectors during their inspections found some payments made by Barcelona to the company with no evidence of the referee offering any service in return for the payments and decided to pass the information of a suspected fraud case to the state investigators.
Barcelona, as a club, have been charged with the crime of continued corruption in business which reflects that the crime is alleged to have taken place repeatedly over a sustained period of time. Investigations further reveal that payments from the club to Negreira were continuously taking place over a 17-year period during which Barcelona won 10 league titles and 4 Champions League trophies.
The prosecutors accuse Barcelona, former presidents Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu, Negreira and two other former Barcelona officials of corruption In sports, unfair administration and falsehood in mercantile documents and also claim that under a secret agreement and in exchange for money, Negreira favoured Barcelona in the decisions taken by referees in the games played by the club as well as in the results of the competitions.
In their defence however, Barcelona insisted that Negreira only worked as an adviser for the club. Club President Joan Laporta said in a press release that Negreira was paid to prepare reports and guide Barcelona players on refereeing issues, describing the situation as very normal and denying any crime committed by such acts. “Let it be clear Barca have neverbought referees and Barca have never had the intention of buying referees, absolutely never†were the words of Joan Laporta while denying the accusations. Laporta also claimed the campaign against the club is to destabilize the club now they are doing well domestically and assures the clubs supporters he, as well as his board would defend the club and also attack anyone who tries to spoil the club’s image. In his words, “It’s not by chance that this comes out now when Barca are doing well. It’s objective, in the short term, to destabilize the team and in the medium term, to control Barca. I have no doubt that we will defend ourselves and not only defend, we will also attack.â€
The case has been accepted into the Spanish courts with former Barcelona managers Luis Enrique and Ernesto Valverde a list of high profile testifiers expected to be called upon in addition of Joan Laporta. However, the date for the court proceedings to start is yet to be made known, Barcelona remain confident of being innocent of the charges against them as the La Liga President Javier Tebas has already said there will be no sanctions against Barcelona on the sporting level as the alleged crimes happened outside of the league’s statute of limitations.