Barcelona will not receive sporting sanctions after it was alleged that they paid the former vice-president of Spain’s Technical Committee of Referees (CTA), over €1.4 million between 2016 to 2018.
That’s according to La Liga president Javier Tebas, who says that on “a sporting level”, it is not possible to punish Barça, who were led by president Josep Maria Bartomeu during this period, before his resignation in October 2020, along with his entire board of directors.
Former CTA vice-president Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira has told Spain’s tax agency, the Agencia Tributaria, that Barça paid him to ensure that “refereeing decisions weren’t going to go against them,” while the club themselves have defended this(opens in new tab) as asking for “technical reports relating to professional refereeing,” which they claim is “a common practice among professional football clubs”.