Barcelona face charges of corruption over payments the club made to Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira – a former vice-president of Spain’s referees’ committee.
It emerged last month that Barca paid Negreira and a company he owns a reported total of 8.4m euros (£7.4m) between 2001 and 2018.
These lawsuits, brought by the Barcelona public prosecutor’s office, target the club, as well as former presidents Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell.
“FC Barcelona obtained and maintained a strictly confidential verbal agreement with Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira so that, in his capacity as vice-president of the technical arbitral committee (CTA) and in exchange for money, the latter carries out actions tending to benefit FC Barcelona in decisions by the referees,” said the public prosecutor’s office.
La Liga chief executive Javier Tebas said last month that current president Joan Laporta should resign if he was unable to explain the payments.
The payments, revealed last month by radio station Ser Catalunya, came to light following an investigation by tax authorities into Negreira’s company Dasnil 95.
Barcelona made payments to the company totalling a reported 1.4m euros (£1.2m) between 2016 and 2018, and paid Negreira, 77, about 7m euros (£6.2m) between 2001 and 2018, the year he left his role with the referees’ committee.
Barca acknowledged the club had paid Dasnil 95, which it described as “an external technical consultant” to compile video reports related to professional referees “with the aim of complementing the information required by the coaching staff”.
