[Sport] Between Bartomeo's corruption and the acquittal of Russell ... "If I were not a Barcelona accountant, I would not have been imprisoned."

[HiTLeR]

 

 

 

Accusation of corruption by the presidents of Barcelona, Spain, has become a common sight among Catalan club fans in recent years.

 

On Monday morning, the National Police of Catalonia arrested former Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu, as well as former club general manager Oscar Grau and former club lawyer Gomez Pontivy, in the context of the case on social networking sites known as "Barca Gate". 

 

The scene of the arrest of former Barcelona president Bartomeu is not the first of its kind, as Sandro Rosell, the former president of the Catalan team, was arrested and imprisoned.

 

It seems that assuming the presidency of Barcelona club has become a threat to those who wish to occupy this position, and Russell had said this before when he said: “If I were not president of Barça, I would not have gone to prison.” .. I have no doubt that if I had not worked This position, I would not have spent 643 days in pretrial detention. "

 

Russell spent 643 days in pretrial detention, the longest in the history of economic crimes in Spain, for being accused of involvement in the crime of money laundering, and that he was a member of a network that received illegal commissions in exchange for selling the image rights of the Brazilian football team.

 

The former Barcelona president was charged with embezzling 40 million euros from a deal involving former Barcelona player Neymar da Silva and current French Paris Saint-Germain, from his Brazilian club Santos in 2013.

 

Russell was acquitted of charges of money laundering, and investigations are still underway over commissions obtained from Ricardo Teixeira, former president of the Brazilian Football Association, in addition to the embezzlement case in the case of Neymar's move to Barcelona.

 

After Roussel, the hand of justice extended to Bartomeu, who assumed the presidency of Barcelona after Roussel resigned from the presidency of the Catalan team, due to some corruption cases and defamation of his opponents and players by contracting with a company known as "I3 Ventures".

 

Bartomeu contracted with this company that works on social media for a million euros to glorify it and destroy competitors, and the company was operating through more than 100 fake accounts, with the aim of defaming Bartomeo's opponents, and when the documents related to this case were published, six members of Bartomeo's board of directors came forward. Of their resignation.

 

After Bartomeu was declared innocent of the case and that there was no corrupt behavior at all, the National Police returned to arrest Bartomeo again after new developments were reported on the case known as "Barsa Gate".

 

Bartomeu himself submitted his resignation and his entire board of directors on October 27 to announce the end of his tenure at the club's head after assuming responsibility for about seven years, after a signature campaign was launched to withdraw confidence from him and his board of directors at the end of last year.

 

It is worth noting that the Barcelona elections will be held on March 7, and only three candidates are competing for the position of the new Barcelona chairman, and they are Juan Laporta, Tony Fricha, in addition to Victor Font.