The Barcelona scandal evaporated even before it erupted

It would be the most ephemeral scandal that football remembers. Because less than 48 hours after the media-judicial earthquake that hit Barcelona, everything would end in nothing. The facts, for now: Madrid broadcaster Cadena Ser reveals on Tuesday that the Blaugrana club would have paid between 2016 and 2018 1.4 million euros to José Maria Enriquez Negreira, at the time the vice-president of the Spanish Football Federation’s technical committee of referees. The investigation allegedly started from the tax audits carried out by Dasnil 95 SL, the same company made up solely of Negreira and to which Barça’s payments were made out. Shortly after, the Catalan prosecutor’s office opened an investigation. Local media mostly ignored the news. Everyone else drops the bomb. On Wednesday morning, even Forbes would know enough to start as follows: “Barcelona risks relegation to the Segunda Division”.

Other elements emerge to fuel the hunger for justice. First: the confirmation of the person concerned. During Bartomeu’s presidency, the club actually paid the amount in question to Negreira without an invoice (hence the tax audit). And the ex-manager’s explanation leaves the time it finds: it was a consultancy work that Barça had commissioned to explain to the players the conduct to be followed on the pitch depending on who would referee them. No preferential treatment, therefore. Even in this case, however, the Blaugrana come out badly: a maneuver unaware of the other teams, to ensure the non-hostility of the referees with money, leaves room for suspicions and interpretations. We also include the data: in the three-year period in question, Busquets and his teammates received 18 penalties in favor and zero against in the championship, collecting only two red cards against 22 expelled opponents. Barcelona also quickly reckons, “regreting”, reads an official note, “that this information appears precisely in the best sporting moment of the season”, and we add from after Messi, with Xavi’s boys leading the Liga and +8 on Real. “The club will take legal action against anyone who tarnishes its image with possible insinuations against our reputation.”

And then the lawyers will be quick. Because from a legal point of view, the Negreira case is already solved. Marca today – is it possible, the first newspaper to notice it in two days? – reports the content of the new sport law approved by the Spanish Congress on 22 December. Article 112 states that “very serious infringements will be prescribed for three years, serious ones for two years, minor ones for six months”. According to article 101.1, the crime committed by Barcelona falls into the first category, under penalty of relegation, as an “action aimed at conditioning, through cash payments, the regular conduct of a sporting competition”. But the same law on sport adds: “In the event of continuous or permanent infringements, the limitation period will begin to run from the end of the offending conduct”. And the club stopped paying Negreira four and a half years ago. In short, in the absence of new elements, the fact does not exist. If it’s not a record, we’re close.