Barcelona president, two former managers asked to testify in Negreira case | OneFootball

Barcelona’s links with the famous ‘Negreira scandal’ refuse to die down despite the club’s president providing clarity on the truth behind the matter.

The issue, as is well known at this point, related to a series of payments made by Barcelona to Jose Maria Negreira, the former vice-president of the Referees Technical Committee, worth over €7 million between 2001 and 2018.

Needless to say, it’s coming to light seriously affected the club’s image and was seen as a ‘bribe’ of sorts to manipulate results when in reality Joan Laporta has come out to clarify it was paid for over 629 technical reports on referees which is a known practice.

Laporta and Co. were cleared of the ‘bribery’ charges a year ago but special circumstances have caused it to reopen for more clarity on the subject.

Summoned for testimonies

As relayed by Mundo Deportivo in a recent report, a judge investigating the case – Alejandra Gil – has now cited Joan Laporta and former Barcelona managers Luis Enrique and Ernesto Valverde as witnesses for the legal proceedings ongoing.

Luis Enrique asked to testify in Negreira case hearing. (Photo by Buda Mendes/Getty Images)

The judge of the proceedings approved the request by the prosecution for the testimonies of the aforementioned trio in relation to the case as they saw it to be ‘specially relevant’ to the matter in hand.

The Barcelona court recently endorsed the continuation of the investigation into the reported scandal and Laporta’s testimony is required to clarify and testify to the reason the payments were made to Negreira.

Meanwhile, Enrique who was the team’s coach between 2014-2017, and Valverde who was in charge between 2017-2020 have been called to explain the information they received through Laporta’s claimed ‘reports’ on referees and whether they were indeed useful.

Ernesto Valverde has also been summoned by the judge. (Photo by Juan Manuel Serrano Arce/Getty Images)

It remains to be seen how the matter progresses after the latest hearing and whether it takes a turn in Barcelona’s favour or turns out ugly for the Catalans.

In any case, they have a strong case to stand by for Laporta’s claims clarified that they were not wrong on their part.