Enríquez Negreira, the referee who sold reports to Barça: Corrupt or sellout?

Enríquez Negreira, with the ball in hand, during a Real Madrid-Atlético match in 1990.EFE

Pejorative adjectives, nicknames associated with popular go-getters and the certainty that he never had weight as vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) to influence arbitrations are common places when his former professional colleagues describe Enríquez Negreira.

The seven million euros that his company received from Barcelona Football Club for alleged verbal advice on arbitration matters have caused as much indignation as perplexity in the world of braids.

“I am surprised and ashamed that someone uses the arbitration establishment to sell smoke.

Negreira did not paint anything, he was not in the arbitration appointments, he is like a little Nicolás.

He has sold smoke and someone has bought it from him, ”says the ex-collegiate and member of the arbitration committee for appointments Antonio Jesús López Nieto.

“He is a boss, without having a relevant role in the arbitration, he has taken advantage of his situation.

I saw him as one of those profiles that are in the federation to travel and suck on the boat ”, recalls a former federation employee.

"He never speaks and when he does, only three words are known to him: Mercedes... Chivas... and Davidoff," the historic radio and television journalist Alfonso Azuara, recently deceased, even said about Negreira.

The man's reputation is torn between the darkness of having allegedly gotten mired in sports corruption or that of having been the protagonist of a picaresque episode punctuated by the serious conflict of interest and ethics that, being a member of the CTA, his company billed for services to Barcelona.

The Prosecutor's investigation must clarify whether Negreira acted as a manipulator of arbitration wills or as an alleged fraudster who made all the directors of the Barça club believe from 2001 to 2018 that his ascendancy over the referees guaranteed them, as he stated to the Tax Agency, that "no decisions were made against him" during matches and that Barcelona received "neutral" treatment.

"This is the incompetence of a club wanting to control what cannot be done.

There is nowhere to take it.

It is the ignorance of Barcelona believing that it could control arbitration through Enríquez Negreira.

It means having no idea how arbitration works”, says the former referee and commentator for Cadena SER Iturralde González.

“I went to the concentrations of the referees that we did in Santander: one before the start of the season and another in the middle of the course;

and he did not speak.

He only told us in the hotel room which group we were in, whether in the first, second or third, according to the grades they gave us.

And then he was the one who called to say if you were going up or down in category, nothing more, ”Iturralde abounds.

“Nobody has gone to pick me up in a car at the hotel in Barcelona to take me to the Camp Nou.

Neither me nor other colleagues I have asked.

Not even his son, who was

with us, ever told me anything about how I should have refereed ”, Iturralde clarifies.

Enríquez Negreira, on the left, in a Sevilla-Betis match in 1981.SEVILLA FC

For José Luis Paradas Romero, who abandoned arbitration at the age of 40 after privately telling the former president of the federation, Ángel María Villar, and the former president of the CTA, Victoriano Sánchez Arminio, that it was a "corrupt organization," Negreira also had no ability to influence the referees.

“For me it is a particular issue that has nothing to do with the referees.

No one has given me instructions to arbitrate for or against anyone.

It will be Enríquez Negreira who will have to clarify what he has done with Barcelona ”, warns Paradas.

“The Negreira thing is wrong, but the one who buys it is also wrong.

This is a matter of corruption, in which the other party also participates”, López Nieto abounds, who also recalls that among the referees it caused a certain astonishment that Javier Enríquez attended the concentrations of referees as a

.

"It was already commented that this was somewhat scandalous, but in the national and territorial sports federations nepotism is very great."

Before working as

, Javier Enríquez already worked as an analyst for the coaching staff of the team headed by Luis Aragonés.

“I think that as far as the arbitration issue is concerned, this will come to nothing, it will be something between Barcelona and Enríquez Negreira.

For me, this research is welcome.

Since they have opened the melon, please, go to the bottom and find out what has happened to these reports and what they were for, ”concludes Iturralde González.

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