Barcelona relegated? This is the possible punishment that Barca may suffer

In a new chapter of the unfinished Negreira Case, one of the largest corruption cases in the Spaniard football, the court has decided that FC Barcelona is guilty for bribery in its involvement of the Negreira Case, after the Spanish Civil Guard registered the CTA (Referees Committee) offices in Madrid, Spain and has found documents that proves this allegations.

The Spaniard news media “AS” had access to the orders of the head of the Investigative Court number 1 of Barcelona, Joaquín Aguirre, who is in charge of the investigation and says that the former Barcelona executives, “are charged with a continuing crime of active bribery [...] without prejudice to maintaining the alternative classification of the crime of sports corruption of article 286 bis 4th CP, at least during this investigation phase.”.

According to the Spanish laws, all those who are involved in corruption crimes in the field of sports can face from four months and up to three years of jail; but if they are found guilty of bribery you can face from three to six years of prison. Joaquin Aguirre expects that the Negreira Case will be tried by a popular trial.

Javier Tebas, president of La Liga, had an interview with Movistar+ last week and was asked what would be the sanction that FC Barcelona may face if the investigations found the Blaugrana team guilty for its involvement on the Negreiras Case, and said that it may face relegation consequences and economic sanctions, nevertheless, nor La Liga or FC Barcelona have given a statement.

What happened early in the morning?

At 9:00 o’clock, the Economical and Technological Crimes Group of the Barcelona Judicial Police Unit presented at the Royal Federation of the Spanish Football headquarters following the judge order to gather every archive and document related to the payments FC Barcelona gave to the former vice president of the CTA, Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, and his son Javier Enriquez Romero.

According to information given by EFE Agency, the judge, Joaquin Aguirre, has decided to not send any order arrest yet, but he has issued charges of bribery on the FC Barcelona’s former executives, Jose Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell, as well as the club itself as a legal entity, in addition to Enriquez Negreira and his quoted son.

The initial suspicion of the judge is that Negreira, who was the CTA vice president from 2001 to 2018, received bribes from FC Barcelona in exchange to receive the desired refereeing decisions that benefited the Blaugrana team above all other teams, and therefore, it existed an unequal treatment towards other Spanish clubs.