CORRUPTION CHARGES: BARCA FACE UCL BAN AS UEFA OPENS INVESTIAGTION

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Barcelona are now faced a fresh legal threat from UEFA, including a potential ban from Champions League, due to its alleged payments of millions of euros to a company linked to a Spanish refereeing official.

The European governing body asked on Thursday for an investigation into the matter, which is already being pursued by prosecutors in Spain.

Champions League regulations in effect since April 2007 allow UEFA to ban teams from the competition for one season if they were involved in fixing matches.

Court documents show Barcelona paid 7.3 million euros (£6.4 million) from 2001-18 to two companies owned by Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, DASNIL and NILSAT.

Negreira is the former vice president of Spanish soccer’s refereeing committee.

Prosecutors in Spain have formally accused Barcelona of corruption in sports, fraudulent management and falsification of business documents, and have stated that their belief is that the club maintained a relationship with the refereeing official to ensure ‘favourable decisions’ were made by referees.

No evidence has yet been published that referees or individual games were actually influenced.

Barcelona has consistently denied any wrongdoing or conflict of interest, saying it paid for technical reports on referees but never tried to influence their decisions in games.

Last week, Barcelona’s former directors claim that the payments were made as ‘an act of self-defence’, according to Spanish newspaper El Mundo.