jape
I don’t think we’ve ever really discussed this but what exactly is your take on the Negreira scandal?
I don’t care much for La Liga but I love legal trouble so I’ve been following that Negreira case.
I’ll only be including previously established factual information, no conclusions or accusations or cheating. For example, I am not aware of
any evidence proving matchfixing or associated acts. The questions are not about court or po
Question 1:
Do you think there is a charitable explanation for the longtime payments to Negreira (VP of ref committee)?
An example of a charitable explanation would be Barcelona’s defense that these were “consulting fees” for reports on referee behavior, bias etc.
The reason I ask is because “consulting fees” are often used in corrupt schemes in my personal experience. Marking payments as consulting is perfectly normal but “consulting” is a vague term that you allows you a lot of freedom to define it.
Last question:
Do you think it is unreasonable for people to draw a negative inference from this case, based on the available information?
I really struggle to see any charitable explanation for both the purpose and secrecy of the payments.
The level of secrecy strongly implies the select few involved suggest they knew this arrangement at best
looked improper.
As for the stated purpose of receiving reports from Negreira, the goal of analysing referee bias based on Negreira’s reports also doesn’t make much sense to me. That again
sounds improper, especially with the secretive payment structure, and I assume that Barca in-house or an referee-unaffiliated firm could likely provide such analysis.
Again, I am not aware of any evidence that substantiates accusations ot cheating, matchfixing, …
So this isn’t some sort of disingenuous attack on Barca or anything.
As is bound to happen, I just see a lot of Barca fans defending the Negreira case like it’s all just a witch hunt without any hint of impropriety.
