FC Barcelona was charged almost two weeks ago by the Spanish Public Prosecution Service for corruption and false accounting.
The club is accused of paying a total of more than €7 million between 2001 and 2018 to the then vice-president of the Spanish referees’ federation. These payments are nowhere to be found in the club’s accounts.
‘Smoking gun’
The latter is already punishable, but the club ends up in much deeper problems if it can be proven that the more than 7 million were paid to influence referees and manipulate the results of matches. Documents that clearly show that, were not known until now.
People wondered: where is the smoking gun? The mysterious envelope that has now surfaced seems one step closer to that evidence. At the same time, it is difficult to understand at some points what exactly is meant by the information in the envelope.
The Spanish force El País got its hands on the envelope it’s all about:
What is certain is that the envelope was found in a safe belonging to former Barcelona director Josep Contreras, who died late last year. Judging by the text on the envelope, it also seems certain that he insisted on keeping the contents secret. Now the envelope and its contents are still with the judiciary and have been leaked to the press.
Black money
The papers in the envelope contain many names in Contreras’s handwriting, including Sandro Rosell, Barça president from 2010 to 2014. Contreras is also likely pointing to Rosell’s successor, Bartameu, president from 2014 to 2020, already listed in Bartameu’s case alone, two first names are mentioned, Josep Maria, with the following note: check, black money, Banca Catalana.
There are more names on the papers, including a lawyer. Elsewhere, Contreras writes about keys to a safe and where to find them. He also writes remarkably often about Mallorca and Palma de Mallorca, although it is unclear what exactly he means by that or what would have happened there.
The deceased former director Contreras:
The question is whether all the papers that were in the envelope have been leaked to the press. It may be that people at the Public Prosecution Service have leaked part of the contents of the envelope, in order to make the current FC Barcelona board nervous. That board was preparing a major press conference in which they promised to be able to refute all accusations made by the Public Prosecution Service.
Bank statements
That there is a deliberate leak from judicial circles seems all the more plausible because almost simultaneously with the Contreras envelope, bank statements of the former vice-president of the Spanish referees’ association, José Maria Negreira, were leaked to other Spanish media. That is the man who would have received the more than 7 million from Barcelona.
The bank statements show that Negreira hosted referees at dinner parties in high-end restaurants in Madrid and Barcelona. He sometimes spent as much as 2500 euros per evening for such dinners.
Furthermore, Negreira’s papers mention “summer gifts” to referees. Negreira withdrew huge amounts of cash on a number of occasions, amounts of between 150,000 and 170,000 euros each time. It is unclear where that money went.
UEFA investigation
As if the judicial investigation is not serious enough for FC Barcelona, something else is hanging over her head. The European football association UEFA has contacted the Spanish League and wants all the information available. If UEFA sees sufficient reason to do so, the association can exclude FC Barcelona from European football, which would be a financial blow for Barça.
