La Liga President Javier Tebas Accused Of Presenting False Evidence Against FC Barcelona
La Liga president Javier Tebas sent false evidence to the Prosecutor’s Office which attempted to directly implicate former FC Barcelona presidents Josep Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell for alleged unfair administration and misappropriation, La Vanguardia has reported.
Tebas, who has been accused of having an “obsession” with Barca by their current president Joan Laporta and throwing obstacles in the club’s way when it comes to buying and registering players, allegedly did this by using a handwritten document penned by deceased former Barca director Josep Contreras.
According to members of Contreras’ family, however, the document did not contain the names of the mentioned former Barca presidents.
This means that the document Tebas allegedly provided to the Prosecutor’s Office has nothing to do with the ‘Caso Negreira’ scandal where Barca have been charged for “continued corruption” because of payments made to the Former Vice President of the Referees Committee Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira.
Bartomeu and Rosell were also charged, in addition to ex-Barca CEO Oscar Grau and former club director of professional sports Albert Soler. But Barca have insisted that the payments, allegedly made between 2001 and 2018 and totalling more than $7 million as reported by El Mundo, were made legally for consultation work.
This time frame takes in Laporta’s first reign as Barca president from 2003 to 2010, and Tebas has suggested that the former lawyer should step down if he cannot explain the payments “well”.
Instead, though, the document Tebas provided relates to another case where funds were allegedly diverted from the Spanish Football Federation when it was chaired by Angel Maria Villar.
Tebas delivered the letter to the Prosecutor’s Office on February 22 and specified the names of the former Barca presidents who allegedly appeared in the document.
According to Contreras’ family, however, the letter was written decades ago with the only names that appear in it those of Contreras’ lawyer Emilio Roman, the accountant of his companies and a Banca Catalan employee Josep Maria.
On the same morning that La Vanguardia released its report, Tebas took to Twitter to deny that he had provided false evidence against Barca.
“It is false, we do not accuse anyone,” Tebas wrote. “The news itself corroborates this by pointing out what the letter to the prosecution said, nor does it imply an exercise of concrete accusation against anyone.”
That being said, already strained relations between Tebas, Laporta and Barca’s fans have not been improved at the start of a week where the Blaugrana will face bitter rivals Real Madrid in a decisive Copa del Rey semi-final first leg on Wednesday.
