BARCELONA
Could Barcelona be excluded from Champions League over Negreira scandal?
A Spanish judge says Barça are suspected of bribery in their payments to an ex-referees’ chief. Could this new development lead to European exclusion?
As a Spanish court continues to probe Barcelona’s payments to a former referees’ chief, the LaLiga club’s Champions League involvement is in danger.
Barça suspected of bribery in Negreira payments
On Thursday, it emerged that the investigating judge Joaquín Aguirre has formally accused Barça of bribery over the €7.5 million the club paid to José María Enríquez Negreira, the former vice-president of Spain’s refereeing committee, across a 17-year period from 2001 to 2018.
“The crime of bribery has been committed by making the payment, whether or not it is shown that such payments led to systemic corruption in Spanish refereeing,” Aguirre said in a Barcelona court filing.
Former Barça presidents Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell are also being formally targeted by the judge on suspicion of bribery offences, as are Enríquez Negreira and his son, Javier Enríquez Romero.
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Will UEFA revisit decision over Barça’s UCL eligibility?
Thursday’s new developments in the so-called ‘Caso Negreira’ throw the spotlight back onto Barça’s possible exclusion from UEFA club competitions - a matter that had been on standby since the summer.
Two months ago, UEFA’s appeals body announced that it was halting deliberations on whether to bar Barça from this season’s Champions League over the scandal, but warned that it could revisit the issue of the club’s European eligibility.
European football’s governing body, which has also been conducting a formal investigation into Barça’s payments to Negreira, said the ethics and disciplinary inspectors appointed to that probe could yet advise the appeals body to reevaluate excluding the Blaugrana from Europe.
“FC Barcelona is provisionally admitted to take part in the 2023-24 UEFA club competitions,” UEFA said in a statement on 27 July. “A future decision on admission/exclusion from the UEFA club competitions is reserved.
“FC Barcelona is obliged to keep the Ethics and Disciplinary Inspectors (EDI) informed of the progress of the ongoing investigations proactively and to provide the EDIs with all the documents and information they request.”
UEFA added: “The investigators in charge of the case are invited to continue and finalise their investigation and to send a further report to the appeals body if and when they consider that the admission/exclusion of FC Barcelona should be assessed.”
UEFA minded to wait... but could opt to act quickly
While the ethics and disciplinary investigation is not likely to reach a quick conclusion, a new UEFA decision on Barça’s involvement in European competitions could be made much more swiftly.
UEFA sources have told AS that the body’s preference would be to wait until a final resolution has been reached in the Spanish judicial system. However, if scrutiny by Spain’s authorities shows wrongdoing on Barça’s part sufficiently clearly, UEFA could move to exclude the five-time European champions even before the court process has concluded.