“This scenario was foreseeable by the club,” Barcelona Responds with Confidence to the Bribery Charges
Barcelona stays confident as the prosecutor's office files charges against them
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Barcelona President Joan Laporta in a press conference responding to the allegations against Barcelona (Image Via Twitter)
Football Club Barcelona reportedly responded to the allegation made by the Public Prosecutors Office (PPO) in the Negreira Case. The Spanish Prosecutor’s office filed a formal complaint against Barcelona and two of the club’s ex-Presidents. These complaints revolve around the alleged payments made to a company owned by a senior refereeing official. As per the PPO reportedly said that these payments were used to influence the results of the match.
Barcelona, according to reports, allegedly paid over €7.3million (£6.4m) between 2001 and 2018 to firms owned by Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, who was Vice-President of the Refereeing Committee of the Spanish football association for a tenure of 25 years. According to the Prosecutor, there was a secret agreement between Negreira and Barcelona. Under this agreement, “in exchange for money”, Negreira favored Barcelona “in the decisions taken by referees in the games played by the club, as well as in the results of the competitions”.
Barcelona denied the wrongdoings in a statement last month. They said they had simply paid an external consultant that supplied them with “technical reports related to professional refereeing.” They called it “a common practice among professional football club.”
Although a judge hasn’t yet decided whether to take up the case, things have gone from bad to worse for Barcelona already. In the recent turn of events, Barcelona had reportedly responded to the Prosecutor’s allegations. Barcelona said, “This scenario was foreseeable by the club.” Football club Barcelona said they knew this was coming from the moment when one of their colleagues filed a complaint in court. Barcelona also added that due to this previously mentioned complaint, PPO had been forced to stop their investigation.
Now there is reportedly an official complaint in play. In the end, will Barca prove to be innocent? Or charged guilty?
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Barcelona reportedly considering a loan move for Portuguese Full-back Joao Cancelo
Barcelona is reportedly considering reigniting their interest in signing Manchester City and Portugal full-back Joao Cancelo this summer. The Portuguese full-back is currently on a six-month loan with the German giants Bayern Munich. Although this was quite a shocking January deadline day departure. Reports suggest that a move suggest that the move to the Bundesliga took place after Cancelo was allegedly involved in a training ground bust-up with Pep Guardiola.
Joao Cancelo, who denied that he had fallen out with the City manager, has struggled in Germany too. Recently he has reportedly fallen out of favor with Julian Nagelsmann after he was benched for their 2-0 win against Paris Saint-Germain in the last-16 of the Champions League on Wednesday night.
As per the reports suggest, the German sides might not be ready to pay a heavy fee to keep Cancelo at the club. Cancelo however, after the alleged fallout with Pep, is not very keen on returning to the Man-city according to reports. This might be the perfect moment for Barcelona to acquire the services of Cancelo, even if for a short span.
The bosses of Barcelona seem to have had their eyes on the right-sided defender for quite some time now. Barcelona had notably expressed their interest in Cancelo once in 2016, while he was still at Valencia. Barcelona tried the second time in 2020 after he had joined the English side, that was when they offered a player swap which would have seen Cancelo joining Barcelona and Semedo joining the Citizens.
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Arpan Ghosh
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