Judge Joaquín Aguirre has taken a quality step, by charging Joan Laporta in the Negreira case, something logical when accusing Barcelona and its leaders of bribery, a crime whose statute of limitations increases and reaches periods of the current president's first term.. The instructor's conclusions go much further, assuming that Barcelona must have allegedly benefited from the arbitrations and that, although it cannot be said that “each and every one of the referees were corrupt, a group of them were.”

Laporta thus becomes accused, along with the former presidents of the Barça club Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu, the former directors Oscar Grau and Albert Soler, as well as José María Enríquez Negreira himself, former vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees ( CTA), and his son Javier, for payments of more than seven million euros made over 18 years.

A week ago, the judge already made it clear that there were “more than ample indications that Laporta committed the same acts as subsequent presidents.”. That is why it disgraced the leader who urged the club's legal services to request to be accused in the procedure.

PRESCRIPTION INCREASES

The Mossos d'Esquadra yesterday delivered the summons to Laporta, after the judge understood that the prescription of the crime of bribery in the case of the directors can be extended until 2008, just under the first term of the current president of the club.. Although payments to Enríquez Negreira began in 2001, until 2007 it would be statute-barred for the directors. For the rest, no.

The limitation period must be counted from “the day on which the last infringement was carried out” or the “date of the last punishable act”, which would be the payments from Barça to Negreira that took place in June and July 2018.. Furthermore, he continues to maintain that the former number two of the arbitrators, due to his position in the CTA, would be equivalent to a public official.. The statute of limitations for a public official for the crime of continued bribery is 15 years, according to the court, and that is why it calls for an investigation into the payments to Enríquez Negreira and his son since 2003.. However, for Laporta and the former Barça managers this period is 10 years. As a consequence, the period to be investigated begins on July 17, 2008, 10 years before the last payment.

In this way, he considers that “the crimes” of bribery, corruption in sports and unfair administration have not expired with respect to Laporta, as well as “nor with respect to those people who were members of the Barcelona board of directors during his mandate or who were integrated in the organizational chart” and had responsibilities in the way of making payments to Enríquez Negreira and his son Javier through the companies DASNIL 95 SL, NILSAD, SCP and SOCCERCAM SL.

NEGREIRA'S THREATS

The Civil Guard, based on the documentation requested by the Federation, must determine their exact functions in office.. «It is proven that the payments were made over about 18 years and that they increased year after year. It is proven that Enríquez Negreira stopped receiving emoluments from Barcelona once he ceased his position as vice president of the CTA in 2018.. It is proven that the investigated Enríquez Negreira sent a burofax to Barcelona referring to the dissemination of possible irregularities of which he was aware and that would seriously affect the club,” recalls the judge.

Given these indications, he suspects that since Enríquez Negreira was “in the second step of authority within the CTA-RFEF, the scope of his influence was very broad,” and that Barça's payments can “be considered made in response to the position he held.” , since they lasted about 18 years and increased from the initial 70,000 euros to 700,000 annually until his resignation as vice president of the CTA.

“They achieved the desired effects”

«By logical deduction, the payments made by Barcelona satisfied the interests of the club in view of their duration and the annual increase.. From this it is also deduced that the payments produced the arbitration effects desired by Barcelona, in such a way that there must have been inequality in the treatment with other teams and the consequent systemic corruption in the Spanish arbitration as a whole, which does not mean that all and each of the referees were corrupt, but a group of them were,” says the judge.

Furthermore, it details that “the acts carried out by the investigated Enríquez Negreira had to benefit Barcelona to the detriment of the rest of the clubs.”. These acts could only refer to biased arbitral appointments or to admonitions made to the normally designated arbitrators.. To this end, it should not be forgotten, according to what the press has published, that the son of the investigated Negreira accompanied the referees during their stay in Barcelona.”