Barcelona president Laporta charged with bribery

As of Wednesday’s court hearing, Barcelona president Joan Laporta has been charged with suspected bribery. The charges are part of the “Negreia case” in which Laporta is suspected of offering payments to companies linked to José María Enríquez Negreira, former vice president of the refereeing committee during his first tenure as president from 2003-2010. Laporta was not initially named as a defendant when the charges were first filed in September, but he and his board of directors have now been added to the list of accused, alongside former presidents Josep María Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell, Negreira, and Negreira’s son, Javier Enríquez Romero.

Barcelona has been under investigation for a total of 33 payments of over $1.5 million between 2016 and 2018 and paid Negreira’s companies over $7.3 million between 2001 and 2018. Laporta denies any bribery and said the payments were for “technical reports about referees”. Judge Joaquin Aguirre said that there were “more than ample indications that Laporta committed the same acts as subsequent presidents,” amounting to paying “large amounts of money” to Negreira.