This is of course true. I think its easy to put together a compilation of any team on the planet and make it look like they bought the referees. From my unscientific unbiased view, I have seen some games with Barca in them that have seen to be very biased refereed in favor of Barca over the years, but I don't directly base my views on that. Its circumstansial.
There are varying reports on the exact amounts, but it was executed like this. Negreira invoiced Barca. Negreira's invoice was not recorded in Barca's records. Barca instead paid the money to its director
Josep Contreras.
Contreras was paid a commission for receiving the money, some sources reported it to be 50%, others €150,000. Contreras then just forwarded the money to Negreira (he was very handsomely compensated for just getting paid and then forwarding the money). Negreira would then on a weekly basis send a friend or a secretary to withdraw a smaller cash sum from the bank (often EUR 1,850). This modus was for example used to pay this guy, knowing for loving whisky and cigars, €35,000 to record the World Cup games in 2014 (one of few cases when there exist any kind of paper trail, with an invoice specifying recording WC games);
In addition to this, it must be pointed out that it goes without saying that a number of people at Barca -- 100% -- must have been made to 'look the other way'. Barca lends a lot of money and is of course under the obligation vs its creditors to employ top auditors and use top internal control functions. Paying anyone anything without a written agreement is not even remotely possible. The entire purpose of these arrangements are to ensure that no payment isn't traceable, that no "dark pools" of money exists that can be used illegitimately etc. This scandal could never have been exposed starting on Barca's side of things, had the Tax Authority not investigated Negreira and traced the payments from his end -- it would have remained a secret not available to any of the persons within Barca that should have been provided complete information on it (such as auditors etc). Does this "
prove" anything? No, but its easily equivalent to someone getting caught by the police sitting in a parked car without a bank with a robber mask on and a sawed off shot-gun. Should that person be found guilty of planning a bank robbery? Who knows, maybe they were shooting a film. But if no camera men shows up within 30 seconds of the poolice arriving, you must start to get really suspicious.
https://en.as.com/soccer/barcagate-...ras-took-50-commission-on-referee-payments-n/
https://elpais.com/deportes/2023-03...para-no-vincular-su-apellido-con-el-club.html
