The Negreira case is widening. The judge of Barcelona Investigating Court No 1 has laid a charge against the current president of FC Barcelona, Joan Laporta, with regard to the Negreira case, according to a resolution communicated to the club president this Wednesday, to which ElNacional.cat has had access. The judge Joaquín Aguirre explains that the payments that Barça made to the then vice-president of Spain's Technical Committee of Referees (CTA), José María Enríquez Negreira, and to his son (Javier Enríquez) from 2001 to 2018 could be construed as a crime of bribery and since this offence was "continuous" over time, it affects the application of the statute of limitations, so that offences are still punishable going back to ten years before the last allegedly criminal act, that is to say the last alleged payment to Negreira (on July 17th, 2018). This, then, extends the period to be investigated back to July 17th, 2008, which coincides with the first term as Barça president of Laporta, who directed the blaugrana club from 2003 to 2010.
The judge states that the reason for this new resolution is to calculate the statute of limitations for the crimes he is investigating, and accordingly, by applying the laws and jurisprudence, he has now resolved that the list of those to be investigated in the Negreira case must include Laporta, for the payments made between 2008 and 2010 under his presidency, as well as "the members of the board of directors of FC Barcelona during their mandate or who were integrated into the organization chart of the club and had an effective responsibility in making these allegedly illicit payments" to the Enríquez through the companies DASNIL 95 SL, NILSAD, SCP and SOCCERCAM SL.
Prosecutors' criteria
Until now, Spanish anticorruption prosecutors had set the period to be investigated between the years 2011 to 2018 for the offence of sports corruption, and for this reason it had ruled out including Joan Laporta in its complaint for the huge payments - totalling 7.5 million euros from the club to the former leading Spanish referee over the 18 year period. The seven-year period defined up till now has meant that two former club presidents - Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu - along with two other directors, and Barça itself as a legal entity, have been charged. Now, however, the two prosecutors in the case - who report directly to Madrid - will have to rule not only on whether the offence of bribery is appropriate to the Negreira case, but also on the extension of the period to be investigated.
Even judge Aguirre himself, in a resolution released last week (October 9th), considered that Laporta's actions were time-barred, although he qualified this by adding that "at the current moment of the procedure" the judge was unable to investigate Laporta. In fact, this phrase was used when reprimanding the current Barça president because "he" himself was accusing Rosell and Bartomeu of payments that Laporta had also made. This related to Barça's decision to act as private prosecutor in the case; but as the club explained in response to the judge, it was doing so in the alleged cases for disloyal administration in the Negreira case, and only in the name of the club, not that of its current president.
Negreira, a public servant
The first explosion that took place in the Negreira case took place on September 27th, when judge Aguirre ruled that Enríquez Negreira "performed public functions and, for criminal purposes, had the status of a public servant", and that, on this basis, all those investigated had allegedly committed offences of continuous bribery. This resolution has already been appealed by all the defence teams and the provincial-level appeal court, the Barcelona Audience, will now have to say who is right. For the moment, none of the personal prosecutions, nor that being conducted by Real Madrid, have pronounced on whether they are in favour of the judge's thesis.
Barça, in its appeal, drafted by lawyers Cristóbal Martell and Marc Molins, asserted that the judge cannot include a new offence in the Negreira case without clarifying the period to be investigated and without taking into account the periods for prescription of offences determined by the law. Now, judge Aguirre has responded to these complaints with a 12-page resolution, which is once again full of legal arguments and jurisprudence, especially that of the Supreme Court, which refers to the 2022 conviction of managers of the Atlético Osuna club for sports corruption, a crime that was included in the Penal Code in 2010.
It also includes a recent resolution of the Madrid Audience, from this September, which ruled that the Real Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) has the character of a juridico-public entity, and - according to the judge - like the CTA depends on the Federation, also has public functions.
"Adhesive participation"
Pau Molins, lawyer for former Barça president Sandro Rosell, maintained in his appeal that the facts imputed to his client were time-barred because the crime of bribery, if not continuous, is time-barred after 5 years. He adds that what other Barça managers did cannot be attributed to Rosell. However, in this Wednesday's resolution, judge Aguirre also refutes this using jurisprudence on what is known as "adhesive participation". He quotes Supreme Court judge Juan Ramón Berdugo Gómez de la Torre who points out that "the modern line of jurisprudence admits the adhesive participation of other active subjects, and that the requirement of the single active subject has been nuanced".
In the Negreira case, judge Aguirre states that the Supreme Court's adhesive participation thesis can be applied because "there is an invariable subject on the part of the payers" - that being the club, FC Barcelona - and what varies are its presidents and members of the board, who - according to the judge - continued to make payments to Enríquez Negreira for 18 years and increasing the amount (from 70,000 to 700,000 euros a year). Molins was critical of the judge for claiming two contradictory arguments in the resolution: that the facts of the case could match the definition of bribery, although without ruling out sports corruption - but if it was the latter, Enríquez Negreira could not be attibuted with the category of public servant.
In the main photo, Joan Laporta, at the press conference he gave last April to talk about the Negreira case. / Photo: Efe