Barcelona president Joan Laporta charged with bribery
- Spanish prosecutors have charged Joan Laporta with bribery
- Barcelona club president alleged to be involved with Negreira case
- He and six others charged have denied wrongdoing but could be jailed for six years if found guilty
By Sean Walsh
Spanish prosecutors have charged Barcelona club president Joan Laporta with bribery in relation to the Negreira scandal.
Barcelona were levelled with charges of 'active bribery' in September regarding payments of €7.7m made to a company linked to referee official Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, who is alleged to have provided the club with intricate information about referees from 2001 to 2018.
These charges have now extended to Laporta, who is facing action alongside former Barca presidents Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu.
The statute of limitation for bribery in Spain is usually set at 10 years for bribery cases, but judge Joaquin Aguirre Lopez has declared on this occasion that this period should instead be extended to 15 years instead, which enters Laporta's previous spell as club president between 2003 and 2010.
Laporta and the six others charged by prosecutors deny wrongdoing, but if found guilty they could be jailed for a period between three and six years, while Barcelona would almost certainly face suspensions from La Liga and UEFA competitions.
Barca were threatened with expulsion from this season's Champions League amid UEFA's own investigation into the Negreira case, but they were eventually admitted entry into this year's competition.
Laporta is due to meet with club members on Saturday to discuss their ongoing financial woes, with Barcelona attempting to fund a €1.5bn rebuild of their Camp Nou home, with the first-team playing their matches at the Olympic Stadium in Montjuic for the time being.
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