The Court of Instruction number one of Barcelona has ordered to investigate, at the request of the Civil Guard, the alibi publicly used by the president of FC Barcelona, Joan Laporta, to justify why the payments to José María Enríquez Negreira exponentially increased during his first period in front of the club.

The Armed Institute has presented a new report to the judge investigating the so-called 'Negreira case' in which it demands the need to verify the argument that Laporta gave in his press conference last April to defend that Barça triggered the payments to the former number two of the referees for alleged scouting work. That is, obtaining information from other teams and the referees who were going to direct the Barça club's matches.

The Judicial Police recalls that Negreira's turnover with Barça, which amounted to around 8 million euros in two decades, “increased from 2010”. A situation that, he adds, “was qualified by the current president of the sports entity, Joan Laporta, in the public appearance in which he said that there was more scouting work” since “that year the Confederations Cup was held”. The Civil Guard adds that the increase in Negreira's billing that Laporta approved has already been certified by the Tax Agency, which unsuccessfully requested the contracts that supported said relationship.

The investigators emphasize that Barça has answered on repeated occasions that no contract was ever formalized with Negreira or with the corporate network that he has managed with his son and that, therefore, it is necessary to obtain “additional information” about these operations..

In this way, he has asked Judge Joaquín Aguirre to instruct FC Barcelona to make available to the court the documentation in his possession in relation to any company or employee that has performed scouting services for the club in recent years.. Included in the period in which Negreira was no longer contracting with Barça, that is, from 2018 when he stopped being vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA). All of this with the aim of analyzing whether the services Laporta alluded to are really true or simply a false excuse to camouflage the payments to the historic referee leader.

But the Civil Guard has also requested, and the judge has just agreed, that the Barça club identify all the invoices paid to the Negreira family between 2003 and 2018, as well as which senior club officials authorized said payments.. Laporta was accused by the judge but the Prosecutor's Office has appealed that decision by maintaining that the payments of his first stage at the head of the entity are prescribed..

The judicial investigation is currently continuing against the last presidents of the club for the crimes of sports corruption, disloyal administration, document falsification, money laundering or bribery.