Barcelona have released a statement regarding the investigation into the club over corruption allegations.

In light of the information published today regarding the court’s provisional ruling FC Barcelona would like to recall that it is acting as a private actor in the proceedings initiated in the so-called Negreira case, in order to protect the organization from the potential crime of maladministration during the period of the investigation.

The company chose to do this from the beginning to take a stand regarding payments to third parties, given that the organization was convinced that no crime of sporting corruption had been committed.

Barça reiterates that it has used technical services in relation to refereeing and player-related matters for many years and that there is material to support this fact. All this material has been used to improve the preparation of professional football matches, there are invoices for the company providing these services and all the remaining material has recently been submitted to the court where an investigation is underway.

According to President Laporta’s mandate, every payment was made to the only company responsible for this service and not to any third party or company.

Unfortunately, the decree issued yesterday contains opinions and value judgments that call into question the ethics of president Laporta, while:

1) an investigation is underway in this regard FC Barcelona, ​​not the current president;
2) the club has the right of defense in the trial;
3) potentially the company could also be the injured party.

It should also be remembered that the case is in the preliminary phase and that the personal judgments contained in the decree have done nothing but create further confusion in public opinion, causing serious damage to the image of the company and its president after its publication, even if probably unintentionally.

In any case, the club, led by its president, will continue to protect the legitimate interests of the organization through its lawyers who deal with the legal issues in this procedure.

Finally, we emphasize once again that, in the club’s opinion, these actions against the management are not accidental FC Barcelona continues to be the subject of external attacks as part of a campaign aimed at tarnishing the club’s name based on facts that still remain unfounded and the aim is to destabilize the club in all sectors, be they sporting, financial or social .