Barcelona Allegedly Paid Head of Referees Commission

[goughie1966]

Barcelona charged with corruption over payments to former referees' official - BBC Sport

Head of the referees commission in Spain has allegedly received over £7m in payments from Barcelona since 2001.

 

[rossdapep]

 

[Gassin's finest]

lol

 

[Tucker]

Oopsie doodle.

So we’ve got refs being paid in Italy, and Spain in the last 10-15 years. It’s not a stretch to imagine some of our own refs haven’t been taking bungs, given some of the bizarre decisions over the years.

 

[cwy21]

Once again its the tax evasion that makes all the dirty stuff come to light.

 

[PCozzie]

This is extremely serious. From The Athletic's report, Barcelona are charged not just with paying an active referee's company to give them advice, but to rig decisions in their favour. If proven it brings the entire club into disrepute, and should* result in expellation from the Spanish league.

*It can't because, guess what? La Liga has a very handy three-year statute of limitations, and so no sporting sanctions can be applied. Natch.

 

[beats1]

This is extremely serious. From The Athletic's report, Barcelona are charged not just with paying an active referee's company to give them advice, but to rig decisions in their favour. If proven it brings the entire club into disrepute, and should* result in expellation from the Spanish league.

*It can't because, guess what? La Liga has a very handy three-year statute of limitations, and so no sporting sanctions can be applied. Natch.

View attachment 123655

There is a bale goal from years ago that looks dodgy all of a sudden

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11835/10228571/real-madrid-are-still-in-the-la-liga-title-race-says-gareth-bale

 

[Trotter]

This is extremely serious. From The Athletic's report, Barcelona are charged not just with paying an active referee's company to give them advice, but to rig decisions in their favour. If proven it brings the entire club into disrepute, and should* result in expellation from the Spanish league.

*It can't because, guess what? La Liga has a very handy three-year statute of limitations, and so no sporting sanctions can be applied. Natch.

View attachment 123655

They are not saying an active referee.
was involved. They are saying Barca were paying in effect their equivalent of the head of PGMOL, who I assume would appoint Barca friendly/approved referees to their games in return, or instruct all referees that rules should be interpreted in a certain manner.
Barca president says it was for video analysis work the company did for them and can show all the videos/work/invoices, but surely more to it than that. I very much doubt any referee personally benefited, but should be easy to check what payments, if any have gone out of the company, to who, and what for

 

[Gassin's finest]

 

[AtoubaToothpaste]

How unsurprising. I think one would have to be quite naive not to realise that a game with so much money at stake wouldn't be corrupt to the core. VAR only exists to further extend the corruption. In my opinion.

 

[Syn_13]

This is extremely serious. From The Athletic's report, Barcelona are charged not just with paying an active referee's company to give them advice, but to rig decisions in their favour. If proven it brings the entire club into disrepute, and should* result in expellation from the Spanish league.

*It can't because, guess what? La Liga has a very handy three-year statute of limitations, and so no sporting sanctions can be applied. Natch.

View attachment 123655

That's very convenient. This whole statute of limitations principle cropped up after the Calciopoli scandal in Italy. In 2006 the Italian FA investigator, Stefano Palazzi, found Juve and a few other clubs guilty of lobbying referees. In 2011 a follow up investigation was made in light of new evidence and he ruled that that Inter Milan's ex-chairman, Giacinto Facchetti, had been lobbying referees. Facchetti died in 2006 and the statute of limitations meant that Inter could not be prosecuted, nor the title awarded to them (that was stripped from Juve) would then be stripped from them.

He did state that Juve and the other clubs involved in the initial 2006 Calciopoli trial were actually not guilty. Now I don't know how true that is. I'm a Juve fan and even I would find it hard to believe that Moggi (Juve's Director of Football found guilty of referee lobbying) was squeaky clean. I'm willing to accept most clubs were involved, including Juventus. But it's very clear that Inter Milan pulled a fast one, especially when you consider their connections during that trial period.

La Gazzetta, the paper that broke the scandal was owned by Inter Milan VP, Carlo Buora. He was on the board of directors of Telecoms Italia who leaked the tapes that the investigation was centred around. Massimo Moratti, the then Inter chairman, was also on the board of Telecoms Italia. The head of the Italian FA who commissioned and chaired the investigation, Guido Rossi, was a former director and major shareholder at Inter. He resigned shortly afterwards to become president of Telecoms Italia. Even Inter's shirt sponsor at the time, Pirelli, was owned by the same guy who owned Telecoms Italia. The signs are pretty obvious that it was a coup staged by Inter. Juve were actually found guilty for the 2004-05 season, but was stripped of both that year's title and the following 05-06 title. Bizarrely the 05 title wasn't awarded to anyone and became null and void, however the 06 title was awarded to 3rd place Inter (AC Milan were 2nd and also found guilty). It's incredibly odd and the whole thing stank to high heaven.

As a Juve and Serie A fan it's a shameful period to look back on. Despite being "acquitted" by Palazzi in 2011, I doubt Juve were clean either. I think there was shit happening across most teams at the time. But it's no surprise to see this surfacing in other major leagues now. Here in Britain we often applaud our own integrity and look disdainfully at other leagues for their corruption, but I honestly do wonder how clean we are. It's the biggest, richest league in the world. Surely, there's got to be something going on?