UEFA to Assess Fresh Real Madrid Dossier on Barcelona Payments

UEFA has received a substantial dossier from Real Madrid concerning Barcelona’s payments to former referees’ committee vice-president José María Enríquez Negreira, adding a new submission to its ongoing review of the case. Madrid is urging the governing body to move as quickly as possible towards a conclusion, while UEFA says its ethics and disciplinary inspectors will assess the material.

BBC Sport reported on Thursday, 1 October, that the dossier was reportedly more than 50,000 pages long. UEFA described the submission as substantial, but has not announced any decision on its contents or said that it has opened new proceedings against the Catalan club.

The allegations concern €8.4 million (£7.2 million) paid by Barcelona to Negreira between 2001 and 2018. Real Madrid says the documents contain evidence that it believes affects the integrity of competition and confidence in the refereeing system; previous allegations that the payments were used to bribe referees have been strenuously denied by Barcelona.

The payments came to light in 2023. Barcelona has maintained that they covered scouting and technical reports provided by Negreira and his company, Dasnil 95, rather than any attempt to influence refereeing or sporting results.

UEFA investigators decided in June 2023 that Barcelona would not face punishment, and the club has continued to compete in European competitions. The separate investigation by a Barcelona court remains ongoing, while UEFA’s current assessment is part of the existing review; the earlier UEFA response to Real Madrid’s previous dossier forms relevant context for this latest filing.

Barcelona responded that UEFA has not opened new proceedings and that the process begun in 2023 has never been closed. The club said investigators had not made new requests or forwarded Madrid’s complaint to Barcelona as of Thursday, 1 October; it said it would respond if asked and that the UEFA file is subject to the outcome of the criminal proceedings in Spain, as previously outlined in the club’s response to Madrid’s complaint.

The immediate next step is for UEFA’s inspectors to assess the documents within their ongoing review. The submission alone does not establish what action UEFA will take, whether the proceedings will change, or whether Barcelona will face a new punishment.