Barcelona “have not committed any crime” or tried to “obtain some type of sporting advantage,” the club’s president Joan Laporta said Monday amid investigations into payments made to a former refereeing chief.
“Obviously referees were not bought and there was no attempt to influence their decisions,” Laporta told a press conference called to discuss the affair at the club’s Camp Nou stadium.
Last month Spanish prosecutors charged the Catalan club with corruption after payments of more than 7.3 million euros ($7.8 million) to a company owned by a former refereeing chief were uncovered earlier this year.
Barcelona say they paid Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, the former referee and ex-vice president of the refereeing committee of the Spanish football federation (CTA) between 1994 and 2018, for reports and advice related to refereeing.
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