FIFA and UEFA can sanction Barcelona for the Negreira case

Although the Sports Law establishes since 1990 that the statute of limitations for very serious infringements is three years and the last payment from the Barcelona Football Club to the former vice-president of the Referees Technical Committee (CTA) Enriquez Negreira was in 2018, the Barca entity Yes, it can be exposed to a sports sanction by FIFA and UEFA. The possibility that there would be no sporting sanctions in the event that both Negreira and Barcelona had committed arbitration fraud had caused concern among football fans.

The Barcelona Prosecutor’s Office sees signs of corruption between individuals and unfair administration in the seven million euros that the company Dasnil SL, whose sole administrator is Enriquez Negreira, billed the Barca club between 2011 and 2018. If the ongoing investigations show that there was fraud in the arbitrations in favor of Barcelona motivated by their payments to Negreira in exchange for alleged verbal reports on arbitration matters, both the world and European organizations include sanctioning articles in their disciplinary codes. These would be applicable to the case, regardless of whether Spanish regulations in administrative proceedings, through the aforementioned Sports Law, prevent it.

Point 6 of article 27 of the FIFA disciplinary regulations, included in the section on organization and powers, states: “FIFA’s judicial bodies reserve the right to investigate, prosecute and punish serious offenses that fall within the scope of application of this code and in the jurisdiction of the confederations, federations or other sports organizations if they deem it appropriate in a given case, in particular if the confederation, federation or sports organization does not prosecute a serious infringement within a period of three months from the moment in which the infraction is recorded by the Disciplinary Commission”.

FIFA is usually reserved for these exceptional performances when a federation either cannot, or chooses not to, intervene in cases of match-fixing and even sexual abuse. Expert legal sources in sports law familiar with the case warn that, if it enters, the world soccer governing body could impose relegations and even the loss of titles. The Spanish Football Federation has opened an investigation that, if it did not result in a sanction for having prescribed, would open the doors for FIFA to enter the case.

UEFA, for its part, with the entry into force since 2007 of articles 4.02 and 4.03 of the regulations in its competitions, warns that it may penalize “any activity aimed at fixing or influencing the result of a match at a national or international level ” and “will declare that said club will not be able to participate in the competition. This ineligibility is effective for one season only.” UEFA has already entered ex officio in cases of match-fixing in national competitions and expelled the offending clubs from their competitions. One of the most notorious cases was that of the Turkish clubs, Galatasaray and Fenerbahce. In addition, in all cases in which the expelled teams appealed to the Lausanne Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the UEFA sanction was ratified.

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