The Mossos d’Esquadra, the police in Catalonia, have discovered that during the reign of Josep Maria Bartomeu, Barcelona split up several contracts worth more than a million euros in order to avoid internal controls. It is part of the extensive investigation into the scandal known as ‘Barça gate’. Bartomeu is said to have hired the PR agency I3 Ventures for a lot of money, which mounted a smear campaign online against his opponents, including Lionel Messi, Gerard Pique and former players such as Xavi and Josep Guardiola.
At the time, Bartomeu authorized a payment that was up to six times higher than what is usual in the market and he would also have earned from it. Spanish media have been given access to various documents showing that the fraud and corruption under Bartomeu was not limited to I3 Ventures from an administrative point of view. In 2018/19, for example, Barcelona transferred a total of 1,979,464 euros to a company through ten accounts. Internal control by the full board is not formally necessary for invoices of less than two tons, and thus Bartomeu and associates were able to proceed, the newspapers reported on Tuesday. It is being investigated whether he or more people have earned this.
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The Mossos d’Esquadra assure that four contracts of at least one million euros have been withheld from the entire board at the time through this construction. On top of that, there are another six contracts of more than two tons that should have been reviewed and assessed internally, but for reasons that are unclear, they never saw the light of day. Even the internal investigation of Price Waterhouse Coopers, which was hired by Barcelona in response to the ‘Barça gate’, did not go through the entire board, even though it had a final cost of six tons.
Bartomeu resigned as chairman in October last year. He was under a lot of pressure. Not only because of Barcelona’s disappointing sporting results, but also because of the lingering scandal and his feud with Lionel Messi, who wanted to leave. In March of this year, the Mossos d’Esquadra raided the Barcelona offices and arrested Bartomeu, former general manager Òscar Grau, former adviser Jaume Masferrer and former head of legal affairs Román Gómez Ponti. All were released on bail not long after and have been awaiting an official charge ever since.
Bartomeu took office as president of Barcelona in early 2014 and had nearly finished his second and final term until his resignation. Former President Joan Laporta was subsequently elected Barcelona’s new sports director.
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