MADRID: Spanish football club Barcelona are under investigation for suspected “active bribery” as part of a probe into suspected corruption spanning two decades at the refereeing committee, according to a court document.
Police also searched the offices of the football federation RFEF in Madrid on Thursday, the Barcelona court said, as part of the ongoing inquiry into “possible systemic corruption” within the Spanish refereeing committee.
Spanish football and the RFEF in particular are going through a moment of reckoning amid allegations of sexual abuse against former RFEF chief Luis Rubiales.
The refereeing investigation has now been widened to include Barcelona as a suspect. Investigating judge Joaquin Aguirre Lopez said earlier in September the club may have benefited from graft.
In March, prosecutors filed a complaint over alleged payments of more than 7.3 million euros ($7.8 million) over 17 years to firms owned by Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, who was vice-president of the RFEF’s refereeing committee from 1993 to 2018.
Barcelona has denied any wrongdoing, saying in a statement in February it had paid an external consultant who supplied it with “technical reports related to professional refereeing”, which it said was a common practice among professional football clubs.
