Barcelona president Joan Laporta has defended the club’s controversial payments to former refereeing chief Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, insisting allegations of bribery and corruption are simply part of a ‘smear campaign’ against the club.
Payments between Barcelona and a company owned by Negreira from 2001 until 2018 have prompted all sorts of questions over the club’s conduct and the validity of their La Liga title victories.
Barcelona have always maintained their innocence, insisting the payments were for nothing more than advice from referees and certainly not to influence any decisions from the officials, and Laporta reaffirmed that stance during a lengthy presentation on Monday.
“I come as the highest representative of Barcelona to address the members and clarify the public opinion of the Negreira case,” Laporta began.
“During the two months, the club has suffered a tremendous smear campaign. The information and conclusions have nothing to with reality. Barcelona has been a model of fair play. We are proud to have contributed to sport. Barça has won for decades and we continue to win thanks to the effort, the talent of our players, coaches, staff and our partners and fans. When Barça wins, we celebrate together, and when we lose, we’re not looking for excuses.
“At Barça, we like how we win, we like to win by playing well. We don’t like to win because of refereeing. As a great club, we have our detractors and they try to destroy our prestige, out of envy or for other things. They will not win. No smear campaign will prevent Barça from continuing to be a reference in world sport.
“When this controversy arose, I immediately said that I saw clearly that it was an orchestrated campaign against Barcelona. We commissioned an internal investigation that was commissioned to an external firm to carry out an investigation. I’m going to start with this resounding statement: Barcelona has never carried out any action that had, as it’s final objective or the intention, of alternating the competition to get an advantage.”
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Laporta went on to show some of the 629 reports and 43 CDs full of information on Barcelona’s payments, with those shown all stating that the Blaugrana could not be found guilty of corruption or attempted bribery.
“This campaign comes when we start to get out of the tunnel,” Laporta continued. “We’ve saved Barça financially, we’re competing well, top of La Liga, that’s why we have to support the team.
“This campaign comes out when the president of La Liga sees that we don’t want to sign with CVC. We have agreed to look for other options that are better for the economic future of Barça. This is no coincidence. This occurs at a time when Barcelona is working for a new European competition format. Here, the president of La Liga has encouraged UEFA to join this public lynching. It’s not by chance. It is the fiercest attack that the entity is suffering in it’s history.
“It is important to let justice work. We intend to collaborate with respect in order to clarify the facts. It interests us so that Barça can be exempted from any criminal responsibility. It is not possible to condemn before those affected have been judged. We live in a rule of law and among the most basic guarantees, the presumption of innocence, Barça has not had at the media level. Barça has been sentenced to media lynching without trial.
“This lynching is not random. We are risking the credibility of the world of football. There are people who, in an inexplicable way, have shown great irresponsibility.”
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