UEFA won't sanction FC Barcelona for its involvement at the Negreira Case, yet

Early in the morning it was known that Joaquin Aguirre, head of the Investigative Court number 1 of Barcelona, Spain charged former FCB president Josep Bartomeu, Sandro Rosell, FC Barcelona as a legal entity, Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira and his son Javier Enriquez Romero for acts of corruption and bribery committed from 2001 to 2018.

The judge’s suspicion is that FC Barcelona executives would’ve paid former vice president of the CTA (Referee’s Committee) Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira who served from 2001 until 2018, and his son Javier Enriquez Romero up to 7 million euros in a period of 18 years in order to give Barcelona a preference on the calls made by the referees over other teams.

Many clubs from the Spaniard football league, La Liga, like Real Madrid, Espanyol, Atletico Madrid and many others have protested towards the league to sanction FC Barcelona for this acts, nevertheless, according to information given by Alvaro Prats, Spanish journalist from Cadena SER, says that the UEFA organism has already valued a possible sanction on the culé team, but it won’t act until the case come to a conclusion.

The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) has informed in a press release giving their statement about FC Barcelona’s implication on the Negreira Case as they have been charged for bribery and corruption, nevertheless, they’ve studied the option of putting them a sanction, but won’t act yet.

Why Barcelona hasn’t been sanctioned?

Javier Tebas, president of La Liga, and the UEFA have thought about how they can sanction FC Barcelona for these allegations, but as the case is still ongoing and a final decision by the court house hasn’t been released yet, “The procedures relating to the admission of FC Barcelona to the 2023/2024 UEFA club competitions are suspended and may be resumed, ex officio, or at the request of the EDIs in charge of the case.” said UEFA in their statement.

According to the Spanish laws in the field of sports, “Very serious infractions, both in the new Sports Law that was approved on December 30 and in the old Sports Law of 1990, have a statute of limitations of three years, which means that the sports field is ruled out.”, explained a sports lawyer in an interview with Spanish media “El Larguero”.

Due to the corruption and bribery acts were last committed in 2018, and we are now in the 2023 year, any sportive infraction can’t be charged on FC Barcelona, nevertheless, legal actions can be taken on the characters involved, and it may cost the team a very serious economic infraction.