“Most likely, the club will once again get away with only a fine” – Kommersant FM

Barcelona was accused of bribery. The team may be excluded from La Liga and European competitions. According to the Spanish press, the head of the Barcelona Investigative Court, Joaquín Aguirre, believes that the Catalan club violated the law by paying a total of about €7.5 million to companies that belonged to the former vice-president of the Spanish refereeing committee, José Negreira. Kommersant FM sports commentator Vladimir Osipov looked into how such accusations threaten the football giant.

At first glance, the situation can be described in just two words – everything is lost. The guilt has practically been proven, and now sanctions will begin, which simply cannot be mild. Of course, if you call a spade a spade, the club simply bribed the judges to score points. Hence participation in European cups and, as a result, serious money in the accounts from FIFA and UEFA.

Moreover, for example, in Italy, for something similar, Juventus was sent to a lower league easily and naturally. But, despite the crazy scandal and 100% evidence of guilt, Barcelona will still not be deprived of La Liga, Stanislav Rynkevich, an expert on Spanish football in Russia, is sure:

“This could lead, among other things, to a social explosion within Spain. There are opinions that Barcelona is being persecuted for a reason, not just because it has violated some legal or sporting rules, but because of a political moment. It doesn’t matter how true it is, what matters is how people may perceive it.

Plus, there could be a serious financial disaster for the entire championship, because La Liga without El Classico immediately means colossal losses in terms of money from television broadcasts, from general interest. Therefore, I think that Spain will cling to Barcelona by any means necessary to stay. They will come up with any fines, any punishments, but they will not send the team to the Segunda.”

Perhaps that is why, when studying the loud accusations of Spanish lawyers against Barcelona, ​​you begin to notice how they are laying out straws for themselves to make decisions in the future.

For example, the Spanish judge Joaquín Aguirre, who is handling the Negreira case, of course ruled that Barcelona’s payments would be considered bribery. But he added that we are not talking about “systematic corruption.”

The current president of Barcelona, ​​Joan Laporta, will definitely understand all the intricacies of the accusatory rhetoric, football agent Dmitry Selyuk, who lives and works in Spain, is sure: “Laporta is a lawyer by training, and he has been working as one in Barcelona for many years. Laporta came to football as a lawyer – he knows and understands what he is doing. So I think everything is fine, there are no problems.”

And yet, despite the positivity of experts, the court ruling, which was published by The Associated Press, directly refers to the crime of bribery. True, according to the source, the main defendants in the case will be the former presidents of the Catalan club, Josep Bartomeu, Sandro Rosell, plus, of course, Negreira himself and his son, who received money from Barca.

So, with a high degree of probability, these are the people who will have to answer for everything that happened, and the club will once again get away with only a fine. Moreover, FIFA and UEFA are not yet interfering in the investigation, Stanislav Rynkevich believes: “UEFA and FIFA are not particularly concerned about this. That is, it’s like an internal showdown. At this stage I haven’t seen UEFA showing much interest in this.”

But Barcelona also has many ill-wishers in Spain. Representatives of Real Madrid are closely monitoring how events develop with the accusations of their sworn friends. The Spanish prosecutor’s office even allowed Real to participate in the case as a private prosecutor. So, in a certain scenario, the blue garnets may not get away with just a large fine.

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