Barcelona president Joan Laporta charged with bribery

Joan LaPorta could potentially face prison time if he is found guilty of the charges against him. Photo: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images/Adria Puig

Joan Laporta, Barcelona's president, was personally accused of bribery by prosecutors in connection with a refereeing scandal engulfing the club, just days before he addressed club members at at the annual general meeting on Saturday.

A criminal case against the club, two former presidents and club executives for alleged illegal payments to Jose Maria Henriques Negreira, the former vice-president of the Spanish refereeing committee, has now fallen into Laporta's trap.

The charge of bribery is very serious. more serious for the 61-year-old in his second stint as Barcelona president, as the statute of limitations is 15 years rather than 10, as was the case with the other four charges. This takes investigators back to 2008, to Laporta's first period as president from 2003 to 2010.

Laporta will appear before a meeting of club members — the Socios — on Saturday and faces a bleak financial future. Barcelona vice-president of finance Eduard Romeu told club members on Wednesday that the club was still awaiting a key payment of €40m (£35m) from an investor. German soccer financier Libero has deferred the initial payment for a €200 million investment in Barca Media, a digital offering specializing in non-fungible tokens that the club still hopes to list on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

So far, Spanish judge Joaquín Aguirre López has charged seven individuals and the club with paying Negreira €7.7 million between 2001 and 2018. These include Laporta and his predecessors Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell, as well as former directors Oscar Grau and Albert Soler. Negreira, as well as his son Javier Henriques, are also charged with what the club called «technical reports» on the referees.

Under Spanish law, the charges brought by Judge Aguirre Lopez include accounting fraud, mismanagement, falsification of documents and sports corruption. All of them have a 10-year statute of limitations. Judge Aguirre Lopez sits in the Spanish «juzgado de instrucción», which is roughly equivalent to the British magistrates court.

The accused could potentially face jail time if found guilty, and Barcelona themselves could face suspension from the competition. This would almost certainly mean bankruptcy for the club, which is already €1.5 billion in debt. Spanish media have reported that around 20 investors in the Espai Barca project — the rebuilding of the Camp Nou — are considering exposing their risks if Negreira's verdict leads to the suspension of the club's activities.

The club has arranged financing for a further 1.5 billion euros to the new Camp Nou. It demolished its predecessor this summer, with no clear timeline for when the new stadium will be built.

There are speculations that the new stadium will be able to accommodate 60 percent of the planned capacity of 100,000 people and will be open in time for the 2026 season. 2027 Club officials have even begun to speculate that the 124-year-old member-owned institution could become a public limited company. Although in this case, any potential private owner would pay for their shares to the members, and not to the club.

Romeu also announced that Barca TV, the club's own television channel, was closed to save €13 million.

All defendants in the Negreira case deny their guilt.