Scandal Involving Officials: Police Raid Union Headquarters, Barcelona Under Investigation

 

The police raided the headquarters of the Spanish Football Federation on Thursday as part of a judicial investigation into allegations that Barcelona Football Club paid millions of dollars over the years to a vice president of the refereeing committee of the federation.

The Spanish Civil Guard confirmed to the Associated Press that their forces searched the offices of the refereeing committee at the federation's headquarters near Madrid.

They stated that no arrests were made, and they are acting upon the orders of the judge overseeing the case.

On Thursday, a document reviewed by Reuters revealed that the Catalan club is under an official investigation on suspicion of bribery, related to the activities of the refereeing committee in the country over the past two decades.

Earlier this month, the judge responsible for the investigation, Joaquin Aguirre Lopez, suggested that Barcelona may have benefited from "possible systematic corruption."

Barcelona denied any wrongdoing in a statement issued in February.

In March of the previous year, prosecutors filed a complaint regarding alleged payments totaling over 7.3 million euros over 17 years to companies owned by Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, the vice president of the refereeing committee of the Spanish Football Federation, spanning from 1993 to 2018.