Barcelona president Joan Laporta responded to a journalist's question about whether he considered it shameful that "blaugrana" paid money to the former vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA), Jose Maria Negreira.
Idman.Biz reminds that in 2023, "blaugrana" was accused of bribery in payments to Jose Maria Negreira, the former vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA), who worked at the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF).
"Don't you find it shameful that former Real Madrid members, directors, or players have presided over the Technical Committee of Referees (THA) for 72 years? Aren't you ashamed of that? You think it's perfectly normal. What do you want to say? What Barcelona did is shameful, but what Real Madrid did isn't shameful?
What Barca did was legal and completely legal. The payments were made to a company that existed when we acquired the club in 2003. We were told that it belonged to Negreira's son, who did the same thing for Atletico Madrid and other teams. Real Madrid has Mejia Davila, and his wife is also associated with the CTA. These stupidities and condemnations started even before the verdict was issued," Laporta told COPE.
Barcelona was accused of making the aforementioned payments between 2001 and 2018 - paying approximately 8.4 million euros.
According to the Catalan club, Negreira was hired as an external consultant to prepare technical reports on refereeing. The former CTA vice president denies taking bribes to influence referees.