La Liga and Barcagate

I was surprised I couldn’t find a thread about this as I know it has been discussed in several threads!

In any event, i want to present a Spanish, hopefully unbiased viewpoint on this subject.

What is Barcagate
Barcagate was started over a year ago as an investigation of criminal corruption by the previous Barca management under Bartomeu and Rosell. There are many streams in the ongoing investigation. There hasn’t been any formal charges thus far against Bartomeu, plenty of accusations, but no charges and Rosell is currently in prision for money laundering.

A few months ago, they discovered under the table payments to former referee Negreira. They were first investigated as possible money laundry and has evolved to possible payments for referee influence. The payments cover a number of years and several past presidents, not restricted to the two that were the initial targets of the investigation. Laporte has vigorously denied the payments are related to referee influence and thus far la liga, Spanish justice nor UEFa has found any proof of the possible corruption. However the explanations from Laporte have not convinced anyone of stopping the ongoing investigation.

Spanish Refereeing

There is no denying that Spanish refereeing is in desperate need of improvement. There is obvious miscalls in almost every game. There is no consistency. There are so many questions about the proper use of VAR. and there is obvious favourism in some games. But there is favourism both ways, not just to a single club.

By way of background, almost every Spaniard supports or favour to one of Real Madrid or Barcelona in addition to supporting their local team. But if the refs are truly professional, their own particular favouritism should not enter any referee calls.


It should also be pointed out that they are more referee confrontations than any other league and typically these confrontations go unpunished. It is also a league with plenty of play acting. And then there are an abundance of racial incidences. None of this is properly dealt with.

Liga President
We also have a league president that talks way to much about matters that are not under his responsibilities and continues to attack both big clubs. This same president has done little to market la liga, particularly the big 2 which are the biggest driver to television interest. Consider the tv deal that EPL has and recall that la liga had much more global interest before that latest EPL deal and ask why they could get such a deal and la liga couldn’t and ended up selling off much of those rights.

My Opinion

While it would be nice as a Madrid fan, for Barca to be found guilty of the referee scandal in the same manner it also would be great if Madrid dominates la liga and wins all trophies. But that is a biased view and for the betterment of la liga, it is far more beneficial to have open competition .

I therefore hope that Laporte can properly defend the referee payments and as well continue to get their horrendous financial situation under control while maintaining a competitive squad.

What is needed far more is complete overall of the officiating of games. To first solve a problem, there first must be acknowledgement of the problem. And hopefully this should be first order of business for a new competent liga president.

How are we the butthurt ones when the only one obsessed with this ancient history is Bill?

Great work bill, succinct summary. We gotta get to the bottom of this!

BarrileteCosmico wrote:How are we the butthurt ones when the only one obsessed with this ancient history is Bill?

It certainly isn’t ancient when there at least three active investigations.

Are you trying to say there aren’t some serious issues here.

Are you satisfied with your club’s financial situation?
Are you satisfied with team performance in Europe?
Are you satisfied with Liga leadership?
Are you satisfied with refereeing?
Do you really believe Bart committed no criminal activities in driving your club into ‘for all intensive sake’ bankruptcy?

I more concerned about la liga than being obsessed. And again, I am trying to look at this from a Spanish viewpoint without any bias!

Just to add to last post.

If Bart ends up in Jail, there will be no consequences other than to Barca!

If club is found guilty of referee influencing, it would be a disastrous situation for not only Barcelona but la liga as well. It would put La liga in same or worse situation that rocked Italy a decade or two or maybe it’s already three decades ago. It’s not similar to current Italian situation as it is only Juve and there are several other Italian clubs that keep up the quality.

One of the remarks Flo threw out in early days of this scandal was the possibility of RMad applying to join EPL. He is frustrated primarily with financial disparity with oil nation clubs and a few EPL clubs, plus at management of both UEFA and la liga and thus his pushfor super liga.

However if Barca is guilty plus the fact that Juve already is, there are no super liga partners, so he may conclude that only viable alternative to compete is to try to join EPL!

Sounds preposterous! And what happens to la liga if any of this happens!

This is why I’m concerned about this!!

There's literally no evidence. The only time this "negreira case" is ever brought up these days is during Barca matchdays to unnerve the players

Given that laporta is a politican, the press conference should at the very least be interesting

I hope you are right! But then again maybe I am overreacting!

More than anything I want Tebas out and a through revamping of refereeing!

That’s ok Naive one! I know this whole subject is well above your learning capability.

It’s the issues behind this that are serious concern to la liga!

As I said earlier, i tried to put this forward on a non biased Spanish viewpoint. Since you’re not Spanish you may not give a shit, but I’m sure you wouldn’t like to see the league your favorite team plays in loose its stature.

You likely don’t care if Bart is guilty of corruption despite the fact that he has put the club in a bankrupt state as you naively think corruption exist everywhere. Hell, you don’t even think badly about Messi essentially pushing Bart into annual salary increases that put club in the tenuous financial situation. Oh I temporary forgot how incompetent you are in digesting any financial information.

Joan Laporta: “They have nothing because there is nothing. Negreira had no power over the choice of referees nor to alter the results. Tomorrow, I’ll be explaining everything” #FCB

— Reshad Rahman (@ReshadRahman_) April 16, 2023

Joan Laporta, via @Alfremartinezz: “A club [Real Madrid] that has historically been highly favored in refereeing matters is now part of the Negreira Case, it’s nonsense” #FCB

— Reshad Rahman (@ReshadRahman_) April 16, 2023

Thats the funniest part !

Joan Laporta: “Real Madrid has appeared, a club favored by refereeing decisions”

“For decades, the heads of committees were either former socis or former directors of Real Madrid”

“For Real Madrid to come out and say that they feel attacked seems to me an unprecedented exercise in cynicism. I hope this trial unmasks them”

“We reserve the right to seek financial compensation. The compensation we will demand could be astronomical”

"Javier Tebas is irresponsible. It’s obvious that he lacks professionalism. He constantly fuels controversy, he even sent FALSE documents”

Its like Trump deflecting blame to democrats for his own shortcomings

So we wait weeks for this “politician” speech and he offers nothing in terms of defense of the accusations only accusations towards others making out that Barca is the victim.

This certainly will not make this scandal go away!

Interesting development, Perez is not going to respond to any of Laporta's comments.

That's either good or bad

He explained everything aswell i just cant be bothered to post because I’m on my iphone.

He showed hundreds of written reports and video reports, explained that Negireira had no influence over the choice of referees etc, and said that others have also acquired the services of Negreira’s son, including RFEF

But he also, obviously, had to mention who is the true culprit and trying to project with all its media might

hes saying theres no rvidence on Barca but accused with Real Madrid being the true culprit, with no evidence.

Also sprinkled Franco on top as always. Guy is clueless

he’s saying they were favored which isn’t the same as saying they bribed anyone! There is an implication though, as heads of committees have historically been affiliated with the capital club

Anyway the prosecutors have no evidence, the only evidence is provided by laporta.

Laporta: "An investigation was launched and it explained to us that we did NOTHING to get punished by the justice, a real job was done. Now we have to let justice do it’s job. I am convinced that Barca will be cleared of all suspicion”

“There are invoices, everything is in the club's accounting books. We did it CLEARLY and TRANSPARENTLY. We haven't hidden anything“

The only saving grace in this matter is that the justice department is just as incompetent as Tebas!

I feel the likely outcome is it will eventually die out, but it will be painfully dragged out and at end of day, nothing will be done to fix the “refereeing  problem “.

By the way Laporte stayed clear about saying anything about Perez and similarly Perez isn’t going to get involved. These two know they need each other to succeed!

The favouritism that Laporte talked about is actually true. As I’ve said many times, everyone in Spain favours Madrid or Barcelona (in addition to their own local team). The majority is and has been always with Madrid! But favouritism and influencing referees are two totally different statements.

And no Myesyats, Barca has not been transparent with these payments. They were discovered in the original Barcagate as under the table payments that led to an investigation of possible money laundering. The statement that they have invoices and everything in their accounting books was not true nor evident when payments were discovered. There were a lot of accounting “fix ups” as the Bart regime left! Plus you have the threats from Negriera to expose everything when Bart stopped paying. Wonder what that was all about?

You keep repeating “under the table”, can you back it up with a source? Because I haven’t seen that phrasing anywhere and I wonder how payments can be under the table if there are invoices for everything which were subjected to tax examination???


This is propelled by Madrid media to destroy Barcas image because people will have already made up their mind regardless of what the judge rules in the end

el pais,

Here’s an english version:

https://english.elpais.com/sports/2023-02-15/fc-barcelona-paid-14-million-euros-over-three-years-to-the-vice-president-of-the-referees-for-alleged-reports-on-officials.html

It isn’t sports media, it has been in all evening news.