Former Barcelona president gives five reasons why Negreira case allegations are false | OneFootball

The long and tedious judicial process for Barcelona in the Negreira scandal continues, and has only gotten worse with Real Madrid unnecessarily poking their nose in the proceedings.

Former managers, presidents and even current president Joan Laporta have all been called to testify in court about their knowledge of the club’s payments to Negreira and what they were made for.

One of the key figures and former board member who testified recently in court was Sandro Rosell who was the president who succeeded Joan Laporta in his first term and preceded Josep Maria-= Bartomeu.

Rosell’s court statement

As relayed by SPORT, the former Barcelona president went all out in arguing for the club in front of the judge recently and left no stone unturned in making an effort to prove the same.

He outlined five reasons why the Negreira scandal is nothing but an eyewash, and began by speaking on how it makes no financial sense to claim that the payments were towards referees, given how meagre the amounts were.

“It is absurd to think that you can buy results at €250 per person, it is ridiculous and an insult to arbitration professionals,” he said, referring to figures worked down from the €400,000 with VAT that Negreira charged.

The second point, he argued, was the historical influence of Real Madrid on the referees and how Negreira could not have had any impact on the officials’ decisions just for a small payment.

“In the CTA (Technical Committee of Referees), Negreira had zero weight. Historically, in 70 years, the strength has been the president’s, and everyone has declared themselves a fan of Real Madrid.”

Ex-Barça president Sandro Rosell (L). (Photo by LLUIS GENE/AFP via Getty Images)

His third point praised the team at the time, which to this day is regarded as one of the best teams to ever play the game, and questioned how the results of such a team can be in doubt.

“We had a team with Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Pique, Jordi Alba… all players made in La Masia. This really hurts, we had a great team, that’s why we won.”

Rosell also spoke on how Barcelona dominated Europe at that point in time and how that was explained if they indeed had to ‘buy’ their domestic success.

“We won in Spain due to the influence of our players, where is Mr Negreira here? We laugh at Pep Guardiola and his team, it’s offensive. We also won everything in Europe, did Negreira also rule in Europe?”

Finally, the former vice-president challenged for the games to be rewatched and the decisions to be re-evaluated to prove that there was no manipulation.

“My sentences of recent years have been filed ‘for lack of evidence’, now it will not happen. We can watch all the games and have referee experts come to analyse them.”