5 things we learned from Joan Laporta’s El Caso Negreira press conference

Barcelona President Joan Laporta finally took to the public stage in order to answer questions about El Caso Negreira over two months after the initial revelations were revealed in February. His speech and the ensuing questions lasted just over two hours, but what was learnt from it all?

Laporta has a point on assumptions

‘Victim of a public lynching’ and ‘no evidence of corruption’ were phrases that Laporta did not use sparingly during his explanations. Nobody can argue that assumptions have been made, and while the strong reactions are understandable on one level, there are certainly a number of people who have already condemned Barcelona. While the current information available does not reflect well on Barcelona, there is no proof they have, as of yet, done anything illegal.

Populism and partisanship

Equally, there is no evidence of Real Madrid doing anything wrong during the 70 years that Laporta claimed that they had been favoured. Laporta fired shots at two easy enemies in Javier Tebas and Real Madrid, who Barcelona do not need more reasons to look poorly on.

In Tebas, there is certainly something to be said for him stirring up rhetoric perhaps with unneccessary regularity, but on the flipside, his demands for answers from the club were justified.

Real Madrid were one of the last teams to ‘present themselves’ in the legal case, and yet were the only club to be singled out by Laporta. It appears Laporta will be relying on a ‘them vs us’ rhetoric for the rest of this process.

Barcelona fear UEFA sanctions

UEFA are also conducting their own investigation and the threat remains that they could expel Barcelona from the competition. The Blaugrana patently can’t afford to lose the income from Europe next season, and Laporta going out of his way to praise President Aleksander Ceferin for not falling into the same ‘trap’ as Tebas stood out as significant. Barcelona do not want to annoy UEFA any more.

Barcelona will not admit any fault – despite the obvious

While there is no evidence of Barcelona doing anything illegal, most can agree that they were wrong to be paying the Vice-President of the Referees Committee for 17 years. Laporta said that they inherited the contract from the previous presidency, and claimed that while it was billed to Dasnil 95 and Nilsad, companies headed by Enriquez Negreira, they dealt almost exclusively with the Javier Enriquez Romero.

Yet those are not good explanations for why those reports could not have been obtained from another figure not connected to the RFEF. Laporta, as he has shown, is patently aware of optics, and if he had a better explanation he might have admitted that ethically, it at least could have been handled better.

Nobody can be relied upon – except for hopefully the law

Barcelona seemed determine to paint themselves as the victim in this matter. Real Madrid’s retaliation was… questionable to say the least, and speculative in its content at best. Tebas continues to focus attention on Laporta himself, as was evidenced by asking the question whether he should resign. The triumvirate of conflict in Spain, with helpings from the RFEF, are turned upon each other, and each will look to spin the situation to their needs.

While all of the questions may not be answered ever, it appears only once the courts provide a verdict will there be some sort of clarity on the matter.