Negreira Case Escalates: Guardia Civil Searches Spanish Football Federation Offices

The Negreira scandal continues to gain momentum as the Guardia Civil, the Spanish law enforcement agency, has now conducted searches at the offices of the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF). FC Barcelona is facing allegations of being involved in systematic corruption within the refereeing system.

Negreira Case: FC Barcelona’s Referee Scandal

According to El Confidencial, the Guardia Civil has been searching the RFEF offices since Thursday morning in pursuit of documents and records related to the alleged corruption.

To recap, FC Barcelona had reportedly paid around €7 million to José Maria Enriquez Negreira, the former Vice President of the Technical Refereeing Committee (CTA), between 2001 and 2018. While Barcelona claims these payments were for advisory services, the presiding judge of the case, Joaquín Aguirre, suspects systematic corruption.

Further Investigations at RFEF Headquarters

It is likely to be some time before a verdict is reached, but the potential explosiveness of this scandal is enormous. If the allegations are substantiated, it would suggest that FC Barcelona had been corrupting Spanish football for nearly two decades.

Inside the RFEF headquarters, as reported by El Confidencial, authorities are seeking records from the CTA, where Negreira and other officials of the refereeing system evaluated referees in the first and second divisions. Investigators aim to determine which referees benefited from the assessments of the leadership, were promoted, and were allowed to officiate important matches. The suspicion is that those who favored Negreira and Barcelona’s interests were rewarded with finals, Clasicos, and UEFA or FIFA matches. Those not part of this alleged system were allegedly disadvantaged.

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JaflaumS05, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons