Sandro Rosell is still looking for an explanation to justify the 645 days he spent in pretrial detention before the judge released him without charge. In the course of the interview that was broadcast this Sunday In ‘Lo de Évole’ the former president of Barcelona points to and hints at various theories that may explain the ‘conspiracy’ that he is convinced was hatched against him and in them they appear without citing them directly, but very clearly, the names of Jaume Roures and Florentino Pérez.
Rosell was asked by who could be interested in harming him, alludes to Roures: “In a statement on a TV3 program he said he knew he was going to be in jail a long time. When I’ve been a month and they tell me it’s not going to happen, it made me think badly. It sounds very strange when the first rogatory put me in jail after taking my statement and the Roures company asked for a registration that was stopped.. When they came from the United States investigated and found guilty of bribery. I miss many passages around my case and he was always close. It leaves me worried. I want to know who is behind it. I don’t think a prosecutor gets up in the morning and says ‘Today I am going to investigate what Rosell did 11 years ago in Brazil privately‘. It costs me. Roures and I are not very close friends. We sold the club’s television rights to Movistar and left Mediapro. ”
Then add another route that signals Real Madrid and the arrival of Neymar to the Barça club and not to White: “The signing of Neymar added an extra rivalry to the one that already existed. I did not understand why they acted like this against me. Why did we hire Neymar against the interests of another team? They did not like that we signed Neymar. They ask me for five years for the judgment that I still have for Neymar. I am not afraid. “
In the Neymar Case, Barcelona accepted the blame and paid five million euros for a tax offense. Rosell gave his version of the events: “We did nothing wrong. Everything is interpretation. Any fiscal issue as it is interpretive as that there is a fiscal crime. Tax interpretation is very dangerous. In the case of Barça when the case of accepting it is put on the table they put the possibility of paying money and accepting the crime. If we didn’t, we had to guarantee a lot of money, so we paid and that’s it. “
Rosell was convinced that behind his arrest there is a conspiracy: “I have no doubt. Mine was not a judicial error, it was a conspiracy. The situation in Catalonia may have had influence. It seems that today you are a criminal because you are Catalan. Before they respected you and you were a worker. Now he is the ‘for them’ and I find it very beast. This must be reviewed. It didn’t help to be Catalan. “
Catalan opens questions about whether research is normal: “11 years later? Without private complaint with private money? Normal?”. Rosell’s company invoiced eight million euros that it receives from a company in the Cayman Islands, invoices it in a company registered in New Jersey administered in Panama and ends up charging it in an account in Andorra: “A movement in these places does not raise suspicions because it was declared to the Treasury. The figures were normal in this business. “
The former president has another open cause as president of Barcelona and it is the case of Abidal’s liver: “They are going to file the complaint. This is part of the persecution that they were doing to me. It is a great animated one. What I know the most badly is the defamation and the damage that they have done to the Clinical hospital because this transplant was done with transplant specialists It tastes bad to me that for wanting to hurt me they do it to the hospital. “
Throughout the program, which was recorded before confinement began, Rosell acknowledges that “I know it’s bad, but I feel rancor, I can’t take it off”. Those two years in prison have been very hard. In the program he explains how he was denied on twelve occasions the request for provisional release: “He was reacting badly. It was a feeling of sinking and despair. There was a day that the lawyers told me that the only solution was to agree, plead guilty and that we would leave immediately. I ask of what? and they tell me that with judicial literature a crime is invented. They would give me and Joan two years, but after more than a year I would leave immediately. My wife and the other defendants were going to be put in jail for a year that I wouldn’t have to serve when I pleaded guilty. He would pay a fine of 20 million and that’s it. Everyone agreed, lawyers and my family. I tell them that I do not want to agree with anyone and I told Joan that we were going to the end. And Joan, my partner, told me that he was holding up too. If I had admitted it I would now be a criminal and I would have admitted it to leave. “
Rosell said about the alleged plot with which he was related for laundering commissions with Ricardo Teixeira, president of the CBF: “Everything I did with the CBF is absolutely legal, legal, proven and with business success. I offered the television rights of the Brazilian team to ART and then resell it to the rest of the world. And I went to Brazil to negotiate with Teixeira for a year and the price doubled. I ended up doing this brokerage and won my service. “
Asked if he regrets having been president of Barça, he said: “I sometimes thought why I got into this mess. Before being president I had zero performances by the tax agency and since then I have had 72.”
Rosell recounted the contact he had with the Barcelona players and the board: “Bartomeu came and Ronaldinho wanted to come, but I told him not to come. As far as I can remember, no player contacted my family. It is part of the character of the professional athlete who is in his world and in his bubble. And when the issue goes over the ball, they don’t get wet. “
The Catalan recounted how the registration and blocking of the money went: “After a couple of hours they make me open a closet. They take out an envelope from a coat and he tells me ‘what is this’ and I tell them’ that is mine and my wife is not. “They put it on a table and it was recorded. It was not mine or my wife’s and it was not there in the morning. They blocked all our assets. At the beginning, 15 and it reached 30 million euros. We live thanks to the Parents who paid our bills unless they let us pay and my daughters didn’t starve to death. The first time I asked to be released, they didn’t even let us pay taxes. ” And on the question of how much almost two years in prison are worth, he indicated: “I have no idea. Just by winning the demand that I have from the State, even for a euro, I am satisfied. Just to say that there are people who have made bad accusations and nothing happens to them. Two years of non-life are worth everything. Priceless. Two years in jail are not paid with anything. Two years of life have been stolen from you. It will mark me forever. “
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