Home ›› 02 Feb 2022 ›› Sport
Barcelona’s previous board, led by former president Josep Maria Bartomeu, showed “very serious criminal behaviour”, a lawyer hired by the club said on Tuesday.
At the presentation of the club’s ‘forensic report’ into the financial management of Barca under Bartomeu, current president Joan Laporta also said “payments without cause, payments with a false cause or disproportionate payments were found”.
Laporta added that “it could not be ruled out that there was unfair reward for those people responsible for these payments”.
The findings of the report prompted the club to file a complaint with the prosecutor’s office in Barcelona last week. The prosecutor’s office began an investigation into “economic crimes” on Friday, a source told AFP.
Barcelona’s report, carried out by financial investigations company, Kroll, was initiated after the club’s general director, Ferran Reverter, announced the results of an internal audit in October.
Reverter said the club was “technically bankrupt” when Laporta took over as president in March 2021, with the audit uncovering total club debts of 1.35 billion euros ($1.52 billion).
The presentation of the report was made in the offices outside Camp Nou on Tuesday morning by Laporta, Eduard Romeu, Barcelona’s financial vice-president, and Jaume Campaner, a corporate lawyer contracted to work on the investigation.
Campaner continued: “If I had to define it all in one word, it would be: disloyalty. Because it is money from the members of FC Barcelona. That money cannot be abused or given away as if it was yours.”
“The legal word for this is false accounting,” Campaner concluded.
Bartomeu has defended his time as president, rejecting the figures presented by the current board while blaming losses on the crisis caused by the pandemic.
Laporta said on Tuesday he was still “open to dialogue” with Bartomeu. He said the club’s wage bill had been reduced by 159 million euros under the current board.
