Barcelona are not dealing with a ban from the Champions League this summer season amid allegations of corruption, it has been claimed.
The Catalans are mired in an alleged scandal that has rocked Spanish and European soccer, with it claimed the club manufactured a collection of payments totalling £6.4m to the former vice-president of the Spanish FA’s Complex Committee of Referees (CTA) Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira’s own providers, DASNIL and NILSAT.
The club have been charged with corruption around the payments, with it claimed Negreira, the then vice-president of the Spanish referees’ committee, ‘in trade for money’ carried out actions that ‘lead to Barcelona currently being favoured in the conclusion producing of the referees’.
On the warpath as he seeks to obvious Barcelona’s identify amid ongoing economic worries surrounding the club, Joan Laporta satisfied with Aleksander Ceferin this 7 days to talk about issues.
In accordance to Activity, a Spanish publication, the summit between the pair went effectively, with all factors from the refereeing scandal to the European Super League getting discussed.
Joan Laporta fulfilled with UEFA chief Aleksander Ceferin to focus on issues including the Negreira scandal
The UEFA chief has been on the file as describing the alleged scandal as ‘very serious’
It is reported Laporta travelled to Slovenia, Ceferin’s native country, with the aim of clearing the air and laying out Barcelona’s case that they did not make undue payments that sought to impact referees.
The write-up statements that adhering to the meeting, UEFA are scheduling to keep a lower profile as they evaluate their alternatives and just take a prolonged see of the course of action.
UEFA will reportedly wait around until upcoming season for a punishment, if any, to be dished out as they hold out to see what the courts have to say about the Catalan club’s circumstance.
Barcelona themselves are claimed to have an understanding of that almost nothing will materialise in the short expression, this means their impending La Liga title celebrations can proceed unaffected, recognizing their participation in future season’s Champions League is safe – for now.
There is reported to be unease about punishing a club of Barcelona’s stature with no the backing of a court ruling, even with Ceferin’s potent words in the aftermath of the scandal coming to mild.
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Spain’s community prosecutor has accused the club of retaining a romantic relationship with Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira (an Elche lover pictured with a concept expressing ‘Negreira give me your jersey’)
‘As significantly as I am knowledgeable, the condition is extremely major,’ he stated. ‘So significant that it is, in my belief, one particular of the most major [ones] in soccer since I have been concerned in it.’
Barcelona will not be punished by the Spanish soccer authorities with a statute of limits meaning punishments can only be dished out for offences in just a few yrs.
‘It will not be doable for Barcelona to acquire disciplinary sanctions,’ Javier Tebas, the La Liga main, stated. ‘Five a long time have long gone by and (the period to hand out) these forms of sanctions expires just after a few years.
‘On a sporting degree it isn’t achievable, but it may possibly be on a prison level. The prosecutor’s place of work is on the lookout into the specifics to see whether a match-fixing crime has been fully commited by folks.’
Laporta has tried out to make crystal clear by means of a series of interventions about the past thirty day period or so, stretching back again to early March, that Barcelona did not pay referees to favour them.
‘They have nothing mainly because there is absolutely nothing,’ he mentioned. ‘What they have performed is enlarge a predicament in which just one of the people who was connected to these firms was a previous referee and a former vice president of the Complex Committee of Referees.
‘He had no potential to change the outcomes of any match for the reason that he did not designate the referees.’
On Monday, he released into an astonishing tirade in which he manufactured the very charged backlink in between Real Madrid and the routine of Typical Franco, which ruled Spain in between 1938 and 1973.
Barcelona main Joan Laporta defended his club by likely on the assault versus Genuine Madrid
‘I want to refer to the presence of a club, on its personal, as a non-public accusation in the trial. A club that suggests it feels harmed,’ he claimed.
‘A club that has normally been favoured by refereeing selections. It has been deemed the team of the regime.
‘Because of their proximity to political and financial electrical power. I think it is value remembering that for 7 a long time, most of the presidents of the CTA have been ex-associates, ex-players or ex-administrators of Actual Madrid.
‘For 70 years, the folks who appointed all those who experienced to supply justice on the pitch, they ended up ex-partners, ex-players or ex-directors of Serious Madrid. In some instances, all this at the same time.’