'No sporting sanctions over Barca payments to former referee'

MADRID: La Liga president Javier Tebas has said that Barcelona would not face a sporting sanction over revelations that the club paid 1.4 million euros to the former vice-president of the Technical Committee for Spanish referees (CTA).

Various media outlets informed that Barca paid the money to Enriquez Negreira over the period 2016-2018, reports Xinhua news agency. In a communique issued on Wednesday, the club admitted it had, "hired the services of an external consultant," that supplied "technical reports related to professional refereeing," as well as video reports on youth team players from other clubs.

These payments happened during the presidency of former Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu, who told the press that payments dated back to 2003, before being stopped in 2018 to save money.

The revelations have stunned Spanish football, with accusations of corrupting the competition being leveled at Barca, although league president, Tebas explained the club will not face sporting sanctions, such as a loss of points as the time for that to happen has expired.

"It's not possible for there to be disciplinary sanctions. Five years have gone by and sanctions are time-barred after three years of the offense happening," he commented.

However, Tebas did not rule out another kind of sanction, saying "it is not possible at a sporting level, but it be so at a criminal level." "At the moment prosecutors are investigating events to see if there could be an offense among individuals for fixing results in sports. Let's see how the investigation ends."

"At La Liga, we are going to wait and we will respect the investigation that the prosecutor carries out," he concluded.