Former Spanish Referee Sergi Albert has claimed that he was threatened by Javier Negreira, son of Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira. The latter is currently at the centre of an investigation into sporting corruption involving payments of €7.6m to the former Vice-President of the Technical Committee for Referees (CTA). the so-called Caso Negreira.
Speaking to Cadena Cope, Albert claimed that he had been threatened while working as a refereeing analyst at Catalan station TV3.
“He called me when I was working at TV3 and said ‘be careful what you say about the referees because something could happen to you.’ I couldn’t back down. He had a very significant ability to convince people, and at some point, he established a payment for some bills that cannot be justified, if not to keep that money for free. I don’t understand why they multiplied his payments by four. He did have power in the Committee.”
One of the arguments that the CTA have put forward is that Negreira’s role as Vice-President did not include sufficient power to influence referees. Albert did admit he wasn’t aware of anyone who had received an explicit order to referee differently.
“I don’t know of anyone who received any order.”
He also spoke of an incident involving Enriquez Negreira’s son, Javier Negreira, he felt he had been threatened.
“Negreira’s son, my relationship with him is that he was teaching referee classes and we were in a parking lot, where a bullet appeared in my parking space. This appeared in April of this year, after giving my opinion in the media. I presented a complaint to the Mossos [Catalan police]. For the people he dealt with, he had various prices.”
He also said he had no knowledge of a scheme to appropriate Barcelona club funds, which has been suggested as an alternative explanation for Barcelona’s significant payments to Negreira.
“No, I have no information that someone has put their put their hand in the safe at Barcelona. “The issue of promotions and demotions is murky.”
Albert here refers to Enriquez Negreira’s alleged ability to recommend referees for promotion from Segunda to Primera and vice versa. The latest reporting is that the judge in the case has requested that they explore this as a line of investigation, although there is no evidence to that idea.
