Between imprisonment, exile and execution ... Barcelona club presidents ... a history of corruption

Damascus-Sana

When we hear the word corruption and fight it, thinking logically takes us to political and economic issues, but if it is related to sports, that is another matter that reflects the fact that sports have become a commodity that some try to profit from, even by illegal means.

In the accelerating developments that confused the corridors of the most important and largest football club in history, Barcelona, ​​Spain, after the Spanish police arrested former Barcelona club president Josep Maria Bartomeu, along with three members of his board of directors, who are Oscar Grau, director general of the club, Roman Gómez Ponte, director of legal services, and Jaume Masferrer, advisor. The former president, as part of the charges against them of corruption and money laundering.

According to Spanish media, the arrests are linked to the "Parsgate scandal", which revealed a year ago that Bartomeu had contracted with companies to polish his image and launched campaigns on social media against some people and entities that were said to oppose the administration of the former president in exchange for millions of dollars from the financially troubled club's budget.

Bartomeu and his advisor, Masferr, who were released by the court today temporarily with the lifting of confidentiality of the investigations after they used their right not to testify before the judge, are not the only ones in the record of the club presidents who were arrested on the same or other charges. The third according to the Spanish "Sport".

Fneñez, who presided over Barcelona between 1978 and 2000, was arrested on charges of tax evasion and the court sentenced him to 6 years in prison before being reduced to two years and two months on appeal, while former club president Sandro Roussel spent 643 days in prison due to a money laundering case and is still pursuing cases involving Barcelona and mismanagement. The national court eventually acquitted him of the money laundering charge.

In the history of Barcelona, ​​even its founder, Juan Gamper, in 1925, was not exempt from the same corruption charges that also brought former President Josep Sonol in 1936 to execution after his arrest by the forces of General Franco.

These successive events coincide with the upcoming Catalan club elections scheduled for next Sunday, in which Joan Laporta, Victor Font and Tony Fricia will run, which raises many questions about their impact on the conduct of the elections.

Nidal al-Suwaidani