Cadena SER broadcast this Wednesday a special on the Negreira case. A week after uncovering one of the biggest scandals in recent history in Spanish football, the alleged irregular payments from FC Barcelona to Enríquez Negreira when he was vice president of the Spanish referees, The spar With Manu Carreño at the helm, he will analyze everything that has happened since the information was revealed.
Albert Giménez, a former referee, confessed to Manu Carreño in El Larguero that he received pressure from Negreira when he was a commentator in the media. He heard phrases like these, as he recounted: “Hey, chicken, what did you think? If you keep making these comments, something could happen to you. Be very careful, something doesn’t happen to you…”. The comment that reproached him was for an alleged play in which a player had touched the ball with his hand, for which Giménez said it was a penalty.
“He presumed to be the one who pulled the strings in Barcelona and that he controlled what happened,” added Giménez. Carreño asked him if, taking into account that Negreira said “be careful” to a retired referee, he saw him capable of doing the same with active referees. “I think not, although it sounds contradictory.”
The best firms of the Prisa Group have been present in the special. The three SER Catalunya journalists who revealed the Negreira case: Jordi Martí, Sique Rodríguez and Adrià Soldevila will report on the progress of the journalistic investigation a week later. The deputy director of AS in Barcelona, Santi Giménez, and the honorary president, Alfredo Relaño, will join the special. In turn, the sports editor of EL PAÍS in Barcelona Ramon Besa, the editor Ladislao Moñino and Manuel Jabois will complete the journalistic table to analyze the impact of the news.
Director of sports carouselDaniel Garrido will accompany Manu Carreño in a special that will also feature the referee commentator for Cadena SER Eduardo Iturralde González.
The ‘Negreira case’
last Wednesday Cadena SER revealed that the Prosecutor’s Office was investigating the company of a former vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) who received payments from Barça while in office. According to the exclusive, Fútbol Club Barcelona paid at least 1.4 million euros to a company owned by José María Enríquez Negreira between 2016 and 2018. At that time, the former First Division referee held the position of vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF). Enríquez Negreira was vice president from 1994 to 2018, the year in which the payments from the Barça club to DASNIL 95 SL ceased.
Josep María Bartomeu, president of FC Barcelona during the period investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office, assured Cadena SER that these payments dated back, at least, to the year 2003. That was the date on which he arrived at the club and on which he already paid DASNIL 95. EL PAÍS revealed that these payments existed since 2001 and that the total amount was more than 7 million euros. In 2018, Bartomeu turned off Negreira, who threatened reprisals.
In that conversation, the ex-president of FC Barcelona admitted to The spar know the burofax sent on February 5, 2019 and published by The world in which Enríquez Negreira threatened the president in writing. The last known episode of these conversations between Negreira and Bartomeu was that the former vice president of the CTA demanded the immediate payment of 267,000 euros through a letter from his lawyer addressed to the then president Josep Maria Bartomeu, revealed by EL PAÍS.
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