Former FC Barcelona president Joan Gaspart has testified on Friday about the Negreira case, investigating the payments of more than seven million euros from the club to the former CTA (Spanish referee committee) vice-president José María Enríquez Negreira between 2001 and 2018.
Gaspart was vice president of the club between 1978 and 2000, and president between 2000 and 2003, when he resigned due to poor sporting results and financial crisis. The payments to Negreira started when he was president and continued with other presidents and included Negreira's son, but Gaspart, 81, said to court that those payments were "normal" because all Spanish teams have scouts, intermediaries, and people who prepare all kinds of reports.
He also claimed because the clubs pays around a thousand invoices each month, he didn't know they were paying Negreira, whom he didn't know personally, and insisted that the payments to the former vice president of the CTA were "the same" as those made to scouts, intermediaries, and other people who prepared reports.
"I don't want to comment on the type of contracts Barça makes. They make a thousand contracts a month. I didn't know him. He prepared reports that are done by every team in the world. I don't know if he was a scout, but he provided information on various matters," he explained.
He defended that the club was never made any illegal act. "I told the judge that any president (of Barça), including myself, if I had known that any illegal activity was taking place, I wouldn't have allowed it".
"Barça has never, from the time the Gamper Trophy was founded until the day I die, committed any illegal act. And bribing a referee to favour you is illegal. I don't understand why they want anyone to believe it, doubt it, or even think it", blaming Real Madrid for getting involved in the case (acting as plaintiff in the Negreira case), saying they are harming football as a whole.