The former Barcelona B coach ignites the "Negreira case" with a new admission
Gérard López, the former coach of Barcelona's reserve team, appeared before Court of First Instance No. 1 in Barcelona to give his testimony in what is known as the "Negreira case".
The newspaper Sport reported that López told the court he had received the referee reports drawn up by José María Enríquez Negreira, the former deputy head of the Technical Committee of Referees, and his son, during his spell in charge of Barcelona's reserve team. He confirmed they had helped him prepare for matches.
López explained, according to judicial sources, that no video assistant referee technology existed between 2015 and 2018, his years with the reserves. He needed information on every aspect of the game. Refereeing was one of them.
Few people knew the referees who officiated in those lower divisions, he added. The reports from the club let him and his staff learn each official's criteria: which referees were quick to show cards, which preferred to talk things through with players.
Every team wants this kind of information in advance to prepare better, López pointed out.
Toni Alonso, the reserve team's delegate for 32 years, testified alongside López and also acknowledged the existence of the reports, according to the judicial sources.
The court is investigating payments of around 8 million euros, made by various Barcelona boards between 2001 and 2018 to Negreira in exchange for the referee reports.
His son, Javier Enríquez Romero, also prepared the documents and is accused in the case too.
Barcelona have always insisted the reports were meant to analyse the personal profiles of the referees appointed to league and cup matches, helping the coaching staff spot their tendencies and how they managed games.
But their former first-team coaches, Luis Enrique and Ernesto Valverde, told the court they never received or read the reports, and confirmed they had no need for them.
The public prosecution suspects the payments were designed to curry favour with the Technical Committee of Referees rather than to buy refereeing consultancy.
On that basis, the prosecution believes former presidents Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu, along with former directors Óscar Grau and Albert Soler, may have committed crimes of sporting corruption, improper management and forgery of a commercial document.
Judicial sources told this newspaper the investigation is almost complete. It awaits a set of documents from Barcelona and the tax office, plus reports on the health of Negreira, who suffers from a significant neurocognitive disorder consistent with Alzheimer's disease.
The investigation may then be closed, allowing the court to decide whether there are indications of crimes and whether to send the case to trial.
