‘Public lynching’: Barça’s Laporta hits back at claims of payments to referees

Joan Laporta came armed with four boxes, 633 referee reports and 43 CDs as he finally broke FC Barcelona’s silence over allegations that they tried to buy favourable decisions from officials, declaring the club victims of a “gigantic” smear campaign and accusing rivals Real Madrid of “unprecedented cynicism”. In a two-hour press conference, finally called eight weeks after the first reports appeared that payments of more than €7m were allegedly made to the former vice-president of the referee’s committee, José María Enríquez Negreira, over an 18-year period, he went on the attack, declaring he would “defend the institution until my last drop of blood”.

The Barca president denied that the club had committed any legal wrongdoing, although he did say that these days the club’s compliance department would have flagged up a potential conflict of interests. There was no explanation as to why it had taken him so long to offer an explanation.

He repeatedly referred to an alternative hypothesis that he says is being worked upon by investigators, in which the club would be victims but said he trusted that no one had “their hand in the till”. That would relate to a now deceased member of the sporting commission who had acted as a middle man between Negreira and the club during a period when he was not president, but Laporta offered no detail.

Laporta also renewed his furious criticisms of his counterpart at La Liga, Javier Tebas, and said he did not expect Uefa to ban them from European competition. He said it was “not coincidence” that Barcelona had found themselves in this situation at a time when they are challenging some of the powers within the game, claimed that there are forces at work that cannot accept that the club are a