Prosecutors investigate Barcelona payments to company owned by refereeing official

Spanish prosecutors are investigating about €1.4m (£1.2m) in payments Barcelona made over three years to a company owned by a high-ranking official of Spain’s refereeing body.

Spanish radio Cadena SER said on Wednesday that the club made the payments between 2016 and 2018 to a company of José María Enríquez Negreira, who was then the vice-president of a refereeing committee of the Spanish football association.

Barcelona said in a statement it was aware of the investigation. It said the club had “hired the services of an external consultant” that supplied it with “technical reports related to professional refereeing”, calling it “a common practice among professional football clubs”.

It said the consultant also provided, in video format, reports about youth players from other Spanish clubs.

The former Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu told Mundo Deportivo sports daily later on Wednesday the payments went back before 2003 and totalled €575,000 a year since the 2009-10 season before they got stopped in 2018 as part of cost-cutting measures.

Asked about his remarks, Barcelona offered no further comment, referring to their original statement.

The technical committee of referees (CTA) said in a statement that Enriquez Negreira had had no official role since 2018 and that “no active referee or member of the CTA bodies can carry out any work that is likely to enter into a conflict of interest”.

According to Spanish media reports, prosecutors launched the investigation in 2022 after a tax office inspection of a company owned by Enríquez Negreira found no record or services provided to Barcelona in return for €1.4m in payments.

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