Laporta denies arbitration aid and justifies payments to Negreira as “inherited”
The president of Barcelona denied that the Catalan club benefited from arbitration aid through payments to Negreira
FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta defended the continuation of payments to former vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA), Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, and his son before the judge investigating the Negreira case on Thursday, insisting that they were never used for illicit purposes.
Laporta denied in a He categorically denied that the refereeing decisions favored the club during his tenure and emphasized that Barca had “a team that was an example to the world.”
Laporta maintains that the relationship with the Negreira family was “inherited”
The Barca president testified for approximately an hour as a witness in the case examining the 7.3 million euros paid by FC Barcelona to the Negreira family between 2001 and 2018.
According to judicial sources, Laporta recalled that when he assumed his first presidency (2003-2010), the contractual relationship with them already existed, inherited from previous boards.
Laporta explained that the sporting department informed him that the refereeing and scouting reports prepared by the Negreira family were valuable for team planning, which is why the payments continued. He also stated that he never personally dealt with Enriquez Negreira or his son.
Barca handed over 629 reports to the court
The president explained that the club has made the 629 located reports available to the court, although he warned that there might not be any more because this type of documentation is destroyed every five or six years.
Laporta reiterated that the technical usefulness of these analyses justified their continuation and that the decision to keep them was based exclusively on sporting criteria.
“The referees absolutely did not favor Barca”
Laporta was emphatic in ruling out any refereeing advantage derived from these payments. He asserted that the team from that period—led by figures like Ronaldinho, Xavi, and Messi in its early days—was “an example to the world” and did not need any preferential treatment. Former presidents Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu echoed this sentiment in September.Those who insisted that the Negreira family was already working for the club when they assumed the presidency and that the reports were considered useful. Rosell also maintained that Barca did not need to pay for refereeing favors to win matches, given the quality of its squad.