The general secretary of the RFEF, Andreu Camps, has revealed this Thursday that an arbitrator has refused to respond to requests for information of the federal Integrity department for clarify the Negreira case.
“All the referees, assistants, delegates and informants have contributed to the internal investigation, except one, despite being required in writing to do so within the two terms that were granted. They are studying how to proceed in this situation in which a referee has not contributed as requested,” said Rubiales’ number two.
fields has not revealed the name of the referee in question, in an appearance that is still underway and in which he has been accompanied by the president of the Technical Committee of Referees, Luis Medina Cantalejo, and which has been attended by numerous current and retired referees. Luis Rubiales has not been present when meeting out of Europe.
Neither has Xavier Estrada Fernández attended, a collegiate who distanced himself from his colleagues by filing a personal complaint against José María Enríquez Negreira. The Catalan referee has not been designated for any match this weekend to perform his usual VAR functions, despite the fact that he does so practically every day.
The Negreira Case investigates payments from FC Barcelona to Enríquez Negreira for almost 20 years, for alleged arbitration advisory services. The case starts from a tax inspection for a contract of 1.4 million euros between 2016 and 2018which led to an investigation by the Barcelona Prosecutor’s Office, revealed by Cadena Ser.
Subsequently, journalistic information has been revealing that there are contracts between the parties since at least 2001 and that the former vice-president of the CTA received an amount of no less than seven million euros for this.
A key figure in the case is the former Barça manager, Josep Contreras, who died in November, who allegedly acted as an intermediary. As revealed by El Periódico de España, Contreras was previously accused of diverting 22 million euros from the RFEF, at the time when Ángel María Villar presided over the federative entity.
The Barcelona club has promised an “external investigation” to clarify what happened, without offering further explanations, despite the fact that Joan Laporta himself had the former vice president of the CTA on his payroll, whose salary was even increased.