Spanish police conducted a raid on the offices of the country’s soccer federation on Thursday. The raid is part of an investigation into FC Barcelona’s payment of millions of dollars to a former vice president of Spain’s refereeing committee. The Guardia Civil, confirming the raid, stated that the officers searched the offices of the refereeing committee at federation headquarters near Madrid. While no arrests were made, the search was conducted on the orders of Judge Joaquin Aguirre, who is handling the case for a court in Barcelona.
In March, state prosecutors formally accused Barcelona of corruption in sports, fraudulent management, and falsification of mercantile documentation. The prosecutors claimed that the club paid Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, a former referee on the federation’s refereeing committee from 1994 to 2018, around $7.7 million between 2001 and 2018. Additionally, Aguirre has added a new accusation to the probe, suggesting the presence of bribery between Barcelona and Negreira. This charge replaces the previous allegation of corruption in sports.
Barcelona has consistently denied any wrongdoing or conflict of interest. The club maintains that it paid for technical reports on referees, without attempting to influence their decisions during games. The accusations of bribery pertain to Barcelona, Negreira, former Barcelona presidents Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu, and former Barcelona executives Oscar Grau and Albert Soler. In Spain, acquiring reports on referees is a common practice, with clubs having the option to seek them from external companies or develop them internally, as Barcelona currently does.
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However, paying large sums of money to an individual involved in the administration of Spain’s referees for reports is not a typical practice. These raids come at a time when the federation is already facing a sexism scandal, sparked by its former president kissing a player without her consent during the Women’s World Cup awards ceremony last month. In Spain, an investigative judge carries out the preliminary inquiry into a potential crime to determine whether it should proceed to trial, which is then overseen by a different judge.
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