On Thursday, the Spanish police raided the headquarters of the Football Referees Committee, located at the headquarters of the Football Association in Las Rosas on the outskirts of Madrid, as part of the ongoing investigations after the Spanish authorities accused the Catalan club Barcelona and some of its senior officials of “corruption,” “breach of trust,” and “false commercial records.” “, In the case of suspicious financial payments to a former senior official in Spanish arbitration, he is also being pursued.
Published on: 09/28/2023 – 15:41 Last updated: 09/28/2023 – 15:44
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As part of an investigation into amounts paid by FC Barcelona to a company owned by a former official in… Football Referees CommitteeOn Thursday, Spanish police searched the committee’s headquarters.
The Spanish authorities accused Barcelona and some of its senior officials on March 10 of “corruption,” “breach of trust,” and “false commercial records,” in the case of suspicious financial payments to Jose Maria Enriques Negrera, a former senior official in Spanish arbitration who is also being pursued.
The regional court said in a statement that the Barcelona court investigating the case ordered Thursday an inspection of the headquarters “as part of the investigation into suspicious payments made by the Catalan club” to Negrera.
A police spokesman said that a Civil Guard force, which was searching the committee’s office located at the headquarters of the game federation in Las Rosas on the outskirts of Madrid, did not expect to make any arrests as part of the operation.
These lawsuits, decided by the Barcelona Public Prosecutor’s Office, target the Catalan club as a legal entity, in addition to former presidents Josep Maria Bartomeu (2014-2020) and Sandro Rosell (2010-2014), and Oscar Grau and Albert Solar, among members of the president’s work team, are also being pursued. Former Bartomeu.
According to the prosecution, the Catalan club paid a total of more than 7.3 million euros to Negrera, a former referee and former vice-president of the technical arbitration committee of the Spanish Federation, between 1994 and 2018.
The tax authorities resorted to suspicion of possible irregularities in the payment of taxes by a company affiliated with Enriques Negrera, so the public prosecution opened a preliminary investigation in the spring of 2022 in order to verify the reason and framework of these financial payments.
These payments, made through the company “Dasnel 95” owned by Negrera, began in 2001 and ended in 2018, when the latter lost his position as number two in the Spanish arbitration body and the technical jury was reconstituted.
According to Barcelona, which denied at the time that any violations had occurred, the company “Dasnel 95” received financial fees for advising the club on arbitration matters. But Spanish justice believes the sums in question could have been used to corrupt the game’s administrators.
France 24/AFP
2023-09-28 13:41:13
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