Walter Finch
FC BARCELONA has vehemently denied a report claiming that the club has been hit with a substantial €15.7 million over irregular player transfer payments.
A report appeared in El Confidencial claiming that the Hacienda had dished out the fine after an investigation into payments concerning former players.
But the Catalan giants have rejected the allegation and have officially requested a correction from the digital newspaper.
According to information obtained by El Confidencial, the supposed irregularities revolved around the transfer of Audi cars to staff members, undisclosed payments for charter flights, and misaccounting of indemnities related to former players Arda Turan and Alex Song.
The reported amounts range from €1.3 million in Turan’s case to a figure nearly three times that much at €3.5 million in Song’s situation.
However, in an official statement, the club contested ‘the content of the information published today’ and laid out their intent to demand a retraction.
The statement clarified that Barcelona underwent an inspection regarding their activities during the 2015/2016 and 2017/2018 seasons, with the investigation concluding in July 2021.
Furthermore, the club emphasised that they were not sanctioned by the treasury for any of the ‘alleged irregularities’ mentioned in El Confidencial’s article.
“The sanctions referred to in the article, which were appealed before the Central Administrative Economic Court, refer to another matter, such as the tax treatment of payments made to players’ agents,” the club stated.
El Confidencial have not responded so far to FC Barcelona’s official statement at the time of writing.
The alleged financial impropriety comes hot on the heels of the ongoing Negreira scandal, in which Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira was revealed to have received millions of euros from sources linked to FC Barcelona during his tenure as the Vice President of the Technical Committee of Referees.
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