Money for Nothin'

[compo 6,127]

I thought Madrid were the generalissimos club 

[Uilleam 5,409]

3 minutes ago, compo said:

I thought Madrid were the generalissimos club 

Not quite as clear cut as the Catalans would like you to believe.

Perhaps file with Maurice Johnston being the first ever RC to play for Rangers.

 

 

[Uilleam 5,409]

Oh dear! It seems that the sanctimonious ones' attempts to deflect attention from el Caso Negreira continue to fail.... 

 

El Clasico clubs clash, but now over which had Franco as a fan

Isambard Wilkinson

Madrid

Wednesday April 19 2023, 5.01pm, The Times

 

Real Madrid’s “historical” video shows a Barcelona team giving fascist salutes. Barcelona’s president appeared to link Real Madrid to support for General Franco

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/el-clasico-clubs-clash-but-now-over-which-had-franco-as-a-fan-8xhwb6xfp

 

The rivalry between Spain’s two biggest football clubs has boiled over, with insults being traded over whether Barcelona or Real Madrid was the favourite of General Franco.

There has always been tension between the clubs, whose meetings on the pitch are referred to as “El Clasico”.

However, their enmity reached new heights on Monday when Joan Laporta, the Barcelona president, used a press conference to defend his club over a corruption scandal and called Real Madrid “the team of the regime”, apparently referring to Franco’s dictatorship under which Spain existed for 36 years until 1975.

 

Within hours of the insult, Real Madrid responded by posting a video on its channels chronicling Barcelona’s links to Franco. The video begins with Laporta making his assertion and then fades to a full screen question: “Which was the team of the regime?” It follows this with a potted and highly partial history of Barcelona’s fortunes under the dictatorship.

Using archive footage culled from the regime’s No-Do (news and documentaries) propaganda service, it then shows the Nou Camp, Barcelona’s football ground, being inaugurated by José Solís Ruiz, one of Franco’s closest collaborators and a cabinet minister, with a Catholic mass and state pomp.

The video also claims that Franco saved the Catalan club from bankruptcy on three occasions, adding that in return FC Barcelona bestowed several honours on Spain’s leader and made him an honorary member.

To rub salt in the wounds, the video then shows Barcelona players giving the fascist salute and records that the club won eight league cups and nine Generalisimo Franco trophies.

“With Franco, Real Madrid had to wait 15 years to win a League title,” a subtitle notes. It then records that some of its players were assassinated during the civil war, and its ground was bombed and destroyed. When the civil war ended in 1939, only five players from the squad remained. “The rest had been exiled or detained by the victors.”

It ends with a recording of Santiago Bernabéu, the club’s legendary president after whom its stadium is named, saying: “When I hear ‘Real Madrid are the team of the regime’, I want to curse the father of the person who said it.”

 

Laporta made his outburst when he came out fighting, after two months in hiding, over a scandal regarding the payment of €7.3 million by his club to a senior referee. The payments to José María Enríquez Negreira stopped when Barcelona dispensed with his services in 2018, coinciding with his cessation as vice-president of the country’s referees’ committee.

The case is being investigated for possible corruption and Real Madrid has agreed to be a witness.

 

Laporta said that it was “an unprecedented exercise in cynicism” for the reigning Champions League winners to criticise his club. He added: “They’re a club that have been known for being the club of the regime, because of its proximity to those in power politically, economically and in sports.”

 

The Catalan government, which has no financial interest in FC Barcelona, called for Real Madrid to remove its video and to apologise.

 

Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who is from the Popular Party and is leader of the Madrid region, defended Real’s video as “magnificent”.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 20, 2023 by Uilleam

[Uilleam 5,409]

"Barcelona are facing a trial on bribery charges connected to payments to a referees’ chief..."

 

ALEX CAPARROS/GETTY IMAGES

 

More than a Club, indeed. 

What then, shall we call them? Fraudsters? Swindlers? Cheats?

Or is there a Spanish word? A Catalan word?

 

But -oh dear!- what about Josep Guardiola's "legacy"?

Of course, his current club, Abu Dhabi Town, faces c115 accusations of financial impropriety.

Oh dear! What about his "legacy" there? 

 

It's a sorry, sorry day when Football cannot gloss over some trivial financial legerdemain.

 

I hope the trial is in Madrid.

 

Barcelona accused of paying €7.3m in bribes to referees’ chief

Martyn Ziegler, Chief Sports Reporter

Thursday September 28 2023, 9.30pm, The Times

Barcelona say they made the payments to Dasnil to advise them on refereeing matters

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/barcelona-accused-of-paying-7-3m-in-bribes-to-referees-chief-tkrsjwzlc

 

Barcelona are facing a trial on bribery charges connected to payments to a referees’ chief that could lead to a ban for the Catalan club.

The prosecuting magistrate Joaquín Aguirre on Thursday launched proceedings against Barcelona and officials, saying the club’s payments amounted to “systematic corruption”. A guilty verdict would lead to Barcelona being banned from European football as well as facing domestic sanctions and comes at a time when the club are in the grip of a financial crisis.

Spain’s football refereeing headquarters was also raided by police as part of the investigation into payments allegedly made by the club to a firm owned by José María Enríquez Negreira, a former top official with the CTA, Spain’s referees’ committee.

 

The referees’ headquarters was raided by police as part of the investigation

JAVIER SORIANO/GETTY IMAGES

 

Prosecutors suspect that between 2001 and 2018, Barcelona paid millions of euros to Negreira’s company, Dasnil 95, to secure favourable refereeing decisions from corrupt officials.

While the club admit making payments to Dasnil, they said the firm was paid to advise them on refereeing matters. The club deny all wrongdoing.

Aguirre said he would investigate the club and several of their former directors for bribery. He added in a written decision that the fact that Barcelona paid “one of the CTA’s three vice-presidents through intermediary companies” is not in dispute.

The payments, which lasted about 18 years, grew steadily “from an initial €70,000 a year to €700,000” and stopped when Negreira left his position in 2018, he wrote.

“It stands to reason that the payments by FC Barcelona satisfied the club’s interests given their duration and annual increase,” Aguirre said. “The payments resulted in refereeing decisions sought by FC Barcelona in such a way that must have involved unfair treatment of other teams and consequently systemic corruption across Spanish refereeing as a whole.”

 

Asked about the latest developments in the case, Barcelona coach Xavi said he “never” had the impression that the club received any preferential treatment.

“I never had the sensation that the referees favoured us, ever,” he told reporters at a press conference a day before Barcelona’s game with Sevilla.

 

Prosecutors in March opened a corruption investigation over the affair, naming Barcelona and four others: Negreira, his son Javier Enriquez, and two of Barcelona’s former presidents, Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell.

They allege Barcelona paid more than €7.3 million to Negreira, who was a vice-president at the CTA between 1994 and 2018. The payments stopped when Negreira left the CTA after a reshuffle at the Spanish football federation (RFEF).

 

When the money stopped, Negreira sent a letter to Bartomeu, Barcelona’s president at the time, threatening to reveal information that would “seriously harm the club” if it didn’t pay up. It was clear from the letter that Negreira “was aware that there had been illegal acts that favoured FC Barcelona that were quite serious”, Aguirre said.

 

 

Simplemente hace trampa
Només trampa

 

 

Edited September 29, 2023 by Uilleam

[Bill 13,717]

There can't be many clubs more likely to be guilty of breaching sporting integrity than Barcelona ... but I can think of one or two.

[Uilleam 5,409]

16 minutes ago, Bill said:

There can't be many clubs more likely to be guilty of breaching sporting integrity than Barcelona ... but I can think of one or two.

Yes, but which one has  a "pyoor speshull relationship" with the Catalan pranksters?

[Scott7 5,153]

23 minutes ago, Uilleam said:

Yes, but which one has  a "pyoor speshull relationship" with the Catalan pranksters?

How do they square that with their pyoor speshull relationship with Royal Madrid?

[compo 6,127]

Money is the route of all evil or so they say I remember very well one high up Union man in the builders Union who had a lovely Caribbean cruise paid for by Balfour&Beatty

[Uilleam 5,409]

4 minutes ago, Scott7 said:

How do they square that with their pyoor speshull relationship with Royal Madrid?

None of them are on the square.