UEFA to investigate Barcelona for its referee payments – The Associated Press

GENEVA (AP)– Barcelona is dealing with a brand-new legal risk from UEFA, including a possible Champions Organization restriction, since of its repayments of numerous dollars to a business connected to a Spanish refereeing official.The European soccer body asked Thursday for an examination right into the issue, which is already being pursued by district attorneys in Spain.Champions Organization laws essentially
considering that 2007 enable clubs to be gotten rid of from European competitions if they were associated with repairing matches. More disciplinary assents can follow.UEFA said Thursday it asked corrective examiners to” conduct
an investigation concerning a potential infraction of UEFA’s lawful structure by FC Barcelona about the so-called ‘Caso Negreira. ‘” Court documents show Barcelona paid 7.3 million euros($7.7 million)from 2001-18 to the company of José María Enríquez Negreira, the former vice head of state of Spanish soccer’s refereeing committee.Prosecutors in Spain have actually officially accused Barcelona of corruption in sports, fraudulent administration and also falsification of business records. An exploring court will choose if this will lead to charges.No evidence has yet been published that umpires or private video games were really influenced.Barcelona has consistently refuted any type of misdeed or problem of rate of interest, stating it spent for technological records on referees but never ever attempted to influence their decisions in games.Any evidence of manipulated video games in the past 16
years could see UEFA exclude Barcelona from its competitors for one year and prosecute a disciplinary case.Barcelona has a 12-point lead in the Spanish organization and is practically particular to certify for next season’s Champions Organization– an entry that would certainly pay tens of millions of bucks to a club that published document losses last year. The concern of proof for UEFA is mentioned in guidelines for the Champions League and various other club competitors.”If, on the basis of all the factual circumstances as well as details available to UEFA, UEFA wraps up to its comfortable contentment that a club has actually been directly and/or indirectly involved,(given that April 27, 2007), in any activity focused on preparing or influencing the result of a match atnationwide or global level, UEFA will declare such club ineligible to participate in the competition, “the policies state.In previous situations of thought match-fixing, clubs including Fenerbahce, Metalist Kharkiv and Skenderbeu were prohibited from UEFA competitors in choices that were promoted by the Court of Settlement for Sport.Fenerbahce was withdrawn from the 2011-12 Champions League by the Turkish soccer federation, seeming to be under pressure from UEFA, after being implicated in controling games to help secure the previous season’s league residential title.
The club was later prohibited for 2 even more seasons.Former Albanian champion Skenderbeu is serving a 10-year ban after a UEFA investigation into match-fixing for wagering rip-offs, including Champions Organization certifying video games and also Europa Organization group video games in 2015.
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