Rubiales federation concealed Negreira tax probe

The Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), then led by Luis Rubiales, concealed during a March 2023 press conference held to address the Negreira Case that it had known since October 2021 that Spain’s tax authorities were investigating former Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) vice president José María Enríquez Negreira. In other words, the Federation was aware of the investigation 16 months before the scandal broke publicly on February 15, 2023, through the Que t’hi jugues program on SER Catalunya.

According to a report published Friday by The Objective, the Spanish Tax Agency sent the RFEF a formal request for information on October 18, 2021. The document, included in the court case file, sought details about Negreira’s contracts, his duties while serving as vice president of the referees’ body, and any potential conflicts of interest associated with the position.

Sixteen months later, on March 2, 2023, RFEF general secretary Andreu Camps appeared at a press conference alongside then-CTA president Luis Medina Cantalejo. Camps stated that the request was merely a routine administrative procedure and did not concern any specific individual.

“At this point, it is absolutely essential and necessary to highlight something that the Royal Spanish Football Federation considers fundamental: there is an investigative procedure being conducted by the Tax Agency that followed the appropriate steps and took place over a certain period of time [...]. On October 18, 2021, the Tax Agency requested information regarding economic data, functions and regulations relating to the CTA [...], a request for information that was not related to any individual and contained no reference to the person being investigated,” Camps said.

However, according to The Objective, the Tax Agency documents explicitly name José María Enríquez Negreira. The report states that the RFEF responded to the initial request for information about Negreira, confirming that the organization knew, at least 16 months before the case became public, that the former vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees was under a tax investigation. The Federation provided the requested information in its response.

Ethical Code change

It was during the period between the Tax Agency’s 2021 request and the public emergence of the case in February 2023 that the Federation urgently amended its Ethical Code. The change removed the 10-year statute of limitations established under FIFA and UEFA regulations for offenses such as those at the center of the Negreira Case: FC Barcelona’s payments totaling €8.4 million to the vice president of Spain’s referees between 2001 and 2018.

Just one day after the Tax Agency’s request was received, a key meeting took place between Barcelona president Joan Laporta and Albert Soler, then director general of Spain’s National Sports Council (CSD). In November 2021, at the first Barcelona board meeting following the tax inquiry, Laporta delegated his voting rights directly to Luis Rubiales. During that same meeting, the board unanimously approved a new Anti-Corruption Policy whose provisions aligned with issues at the heart of the scandal already under investigation by tax inspectors.

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