Barcelona thrown into turmoil ahead of Man Utd Europa League clash amid astonishing allegations

Barcelona have been thrown into turmoil ahead of their Europa League clash with Manchester United.

The Catalonia giants have been in superb form ahead of their home clash with United in their Europa League play-off first leg, winning their last 11 games across all competitions. But off-the-field matters have thrown the club into panic mode ahead of the Camp Nou clash.

That’s because El Mundo have released invoices that suggest Barcelona made 33 payments to a company owned by Enríquez Negreira who, at the time, was the vice president of Spain’s Technical Committee of Referees. It’s alleged that Barca paid the company as much as €1.4million between 2016 and 2018.

It is alleged that Barca made the payments to ensure decisions favoured the Catalan giants in La Liga games, and it has caused outrage in Spain.

In response, Barcelona have released a statement denying the allegations and explaining the payments, saying: “That in the past FC Barcelona hired the services of an external consultant that supplied the club's technical secretaries with reports in video format of youth players from other clubs in Spain. Additionally, the relationship with that supplier extended to technical reports related to professional refereeing in order to complement the information requested by the first and second team coaching staff. This is a common practice among professional football clubs.

“These kinds of outsourced services are now the duty of a professional who works for the Football Department. FC Barcelona is sorry that this information has been released precisely when the team has hit its best form of the season. FC Barcelona shall be taking legal actions against those who are trying to tarnish the club's image with possible insinuations against its good reputation that could be caused by the release of such information.”

In response, the Spanish football association (RFEF) have said: “After the elections for the Presidency of the RFEF at the end of May 2018, with the arrival of the current government team, the leadership of the CTA was renewed, dismissing the previous directors, among whom was Mr. Enríquez Negreira.

“The RFEF requires, in addition to the declaration of non-conflicts of interest from all members of various bodies and employees, an extended declaration signed by all members of the disciplinary committees and arbitration appointment in which they are obliged to detail any income , apart from what is perceived in the RFEF, that could be related to football for the purpose of being able to evaluate and verify the effective and real absence of conflicts of interest. All members have submitted and signed these documents.

”Yesterday, the Integrity Department began a confidential information addressing requests to both those responsible for the CTA and FC Barcelona. The RFEF agreed yesterday to appear in the possible judicial procedures that are followed on this matter. As soon as sufficient information is available, the RFEF will adopt the corresponding measures within the framework of legality that must prevail in all these situations.”

Clearly, the process of getting to the bottom of the allegations will take some time, but it is far from ideal preparation for Barcelona ahead of their crucial Europa League clash with United on Thursday night.