Iniesta: I’m convinced Barcelona didn’t buy any referee

The Negreiro case is currently stirring the whole of Spain. Barcelona is in the grip of disaster, as the public prosecutor’s office is investigating possible bribery of referees. However, according to Andrés Iniesta, this has not happened.

The public prosecutor’s office has already indicted Barcelona and new information is surfacing every day. For example, how the son of Enríquez Negreira, vice-president of the referees’ commission, informed the club’s management months in advance which referee would officiate their matches.

Andrés Iniesta came out of the Catalan giant’s youth and was in the A-team from 2002 to 2018. That is, exactly at the time when Negreiro’s payments were leaving.

“I am convinced that Barcelona has never bought any referee, ” Iniesta said in an interview with RAC1.

“In my 16 years at the club, I have never seen or heard anything special,” assures one of the best midfielders in history.

It’s clear that Iniesta will stand up for his beloved club, on the other hand, if corruption is indeed taking place, the management probably won’t discuss it with the players in the locker room.

While the tax office has advised the prosecutor’s office that it is unable to prove that Negreira’s payments influenced the deployment or assisting of referees, according to the EFE news agency, the lack of explanation for these payments could be a clue that the invoices were indeed covering up illegal services.

Barcelona will thus have a lot of explaining to do in court. In the worst case scenario, if it is proven that corruption took place, the Blaugranas risk being stripped of their titles, points deducted and also relegated to the second league.

Source: RAC1