Javier Tebas, president of LaLiga, assured that this body will also be presented as a private prosecution in the Negreira case and explained that “Spanish football needs clarity”after emphasizing that “the reputation of this competition is above and it doesn’t matter which club it is”.
Thebes announced the performance of LaLiga after confirming that the Prosecutor’s Office will file a complaint against the former president of Barcelona Josep Maria Bartomeu and against the club itself, for the millionaire payments to the former arbitration leader, and after the information published this Wednesday by the newspaper El Mundo about a message that José María Enríquez Negreira sent to Barça, in which he claimed to be able to “help them with the VAR”.
“Very sad, you have to investigate. You have to know whether or not there was influence. Because the influence can be direct or indirect. But is susceptible to investigation. Only the intention of trying to buy a game or vary the result. Simply acting thinking that you could change the intention of the referees, even a designation can be a crime,” he explained.
Thebes revealed that LaLiga reported the matter to UEFA 48 hours after it was made public. “As we could not intervene because it had prescribed, we wrote to UEFA, which other institutions did not do“He pointed out after recalling that the UEFA statutes provide that when national institutions cannot intervene they can do so at an international level.
The president of LaLiga insisted that he wants this matter to be clarified and that “there is no campaign to discredit Barcelona“And he also denied that he has an interest in the club becoming a Public Limited Company. “In the Spanish LaLiga we are the ones who fight against the state clubs. We don’t have a mania for Barça, Laporta and his managers know it,” he said.
He also maintained that “the dispute with the Premier comes from behind, with the issue of Financial FairPlay“, in response to the statements by the president of the Spanish Football Federation (REF), Luis Rubiales, in which he considered it a “chance” that this news came out when the Spanish league was being compared with the English one.
The newspaper El Mundo published in its last edition that Enriquez Negreira He sent Barcelona a message when he was no longer collaborating with the club in 2020, offering the club to help him with the VAR.
“I can help you with the VAR, with me it would have been better for you. If you are interested, contact“, points out the newspaper that Negreira wrote to try to maintain the relationship he had with the club and that had reported him 6.6 million euros.
The Barcelona Prosecutor’s Office will denounce Barcelona as a legal person, Enríquez Negreira, the former president of the club, Josep María Bartomeu and the former directors Albert Soler and Oscar Grau for the crimes of corruption in business and unfair administration, after the payments made between 2001 and 2018 for alleged arbitration advice.