Real Madrid may exercise the private accusation as injured party in the “Negreira case”. This has been decided by judge Silvia López Mejía – who is investigating the payments that FC Barcelona made for a total of 7.5 million to the then vice-president of the referees, José María Enríquez Negreira.
In the letter in which he agrees to the measure, to which LA RAZÓN has had access, he justifies his decision that given his “condition as a participant in the sports competition, he is the owner of the protected legal right”, the “sports integrity” in the face of the alleged manipulation of the tournament for “certain actions by people linked to FC Barcelona tending to favor said club in the decision-making of the referees and, thus, in the results of the competition”.
For the magistrate, “it is indifferent that LaLiga is responsible for organizing the competition since any club that participates in it has a direct interest in ensuring that no acts of any kind occur that involve sports manipulation in such a way that it can produce illegal alteration of the result of the competition”. What she supposes, she adds, a breach of the “principle of trust and integrity that governs the competition.”
Both the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) and the Professional Football League (LFP) supported the white club’s request, which however was opposed by Barça and the former presidents of Barcelona Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell, all of them investigated in the procedure.
Real Madrid justified its claim to exercise the private accusation in that the facts investigated, “tended to favor” one of its main competitors “in the” decision-making of the referees, and thus, in the results”, ” they undoubtedly harmed him”. But both Barça and the former Barça presidents Bartomeu and Rosell do not see these alleged damages anywhere. For Bartomeu’s defense, in the facts investigated there is “not the slightest indication of damage” against the Madrid entity that justify their presence in the case as aggrieved.For the two ex-Culés presidents, the Madrid club is already represented in the case by LaLiga and the RFEF.
Rosell’s defense used the arguments presented by the instructor on March 8 to not consider referee Xavier Estrada harmed, when he determined that “the aggrieved would be those people whose assets were directly affected by the punishable conducts and the entities would also be aggrieved that manage the sports competitions in which the alleged corruption occurs”.
Thus, according to Rosell’s lawyer, Pau Molins, Real Madrid could not be considered harmed, because in the letter in which the entity chaired by Florentino Pérez requested his appearance as a private prosecution “no mention of any kind of patrimonial affectation for the alleged criminal acts being investigated.
Bartomeu’s legal representation, which is exercised by lawyer José María Fuster-Fabra, also opposed it because, he argued, “the admission without any justification of individual private accusations from each of the football teams would lead to a procedure of impossible investigation.” For the same reason that Real Madrid was allowed to appear, he stated, “the Real Club Deportivo Espanyol, Celta de Vigo, Elche Club de Fútbol, etc. could try to appear”, entities -he stressed- “that participate in the Professional Football League and in the Royal Spanish Football Federation».
