Seeking to defend their career, Spain’s referees gathered in Madrid on Thursday after a scandal involving Barcelona paying hundreds of thousands of {dollars} over a number of years to a former referee performing as their vice chairman.
Barcelona denies any wrongdoing and says the cash was for experiences on referees and youth gamers. Still, a Spanish state prosecutor probes the enterprise after the nation’s tax officers get entangled.
“We want to make clear that no one has more at stake than we do in assuring that justice is served,” referee Jose Maria Sanchez Martinez learn from the manifesto within the title of all the physique of soccer match officers.
Sanchez Martinez expressed “disgust” on the case and insisted the alleged actions of 1 particular person “cannot tarnish our image and the honor” of Spanish referees.
The manifesto hoped that the “alleged acts by a person that formed part of this house in his time won’t stain our image and the honor of this great body.”
Several hundred energetic and former referees and referee assistants attended the primary news convention given by the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) because the scandal was damaged by Spain’s Cadena SER radio station on Feb. 15.
The refereeing physique tried to distance itself from the connection between Barcelona and former referee Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, who was part of the Spanish soccer federation’s refereeing committee from 1994-2018. Local media experiences say Barcelona’s funds to Negreira reached 7 million euros ($7.5 million) between 2001 and 2018 after they stopped.
While not confirming the precise figures, Barcelona has acknowledged the common fee to Negreira throughout these years. The membership has employed an unbiased agency to hold out its investigation and is predicted to present a extra detailed account of the connection with Negreira as soon as that’s concluded.
There have been no experiences from officers or within the media of the funds being linked to favoritism towards Barcelona by referees. Moreover, many former referees who had been energetic when Negreira was their vice chairman have mentioned they by no means obtained any stress from him or different officers.
They additionally mentioned his position was to tell referees what competitors that they had been designated every season, however not which video games.
RFEF Secretary-General Andreu Camps, second to president Luis Rubiales, on Thursday, mentioned his group has complied with requests for info from Spain’s tax workplace and prosecutors and stored UEFA knowledgeable.
“UEFA has requested information from the RFEF, the RFEF has replied and has provided all the information it has at the moment,” Camps advised the news convention on the federation’s headquarters in Las Rozas.
Camps mentioned the RFEF “has offered to take any other action that UEFA itself tells us to take.”
Accompanied by the president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA), Luis Medina Cantalejo, Camps mentioned the RFEF Integrity Department is finding out the “Negreira case” after receiving the data they requested from Barcelona, the CTA, and the RFEF.
The affair has shadowed the refereeing institution that the present CTA chief wished to clear up.
“There is an anti-referee climate, and people are saying that (referees) were bought; there is no evidence, no proof to say that a referee is dishonest,” mentioned Medina Cantalejo.
“If there is anything, people have allegedly taken advantage of their position to make a profit.”
Camps and Medina Cantalejo mentioned all of the referees besides one responded to a questionnaire, asking if that they had had any contact with Negreira or his son.
“We called him (this referee) to ask him what was going on, and to this day, he has not responded to a request from his company, which is the Federation,” mentioned Medina Cantalejo, with out revealing the title of the referee in query.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
