LaLiga president Javier Tebas has said he is not out to get Barcelona but only to make sure that rules are followed by all.
Barca president Joan Laporta said that Tebas is obsessed with trying to dirty the club’s image, that he is “anti-Barcelona” and is always trying “to destabilise us.”
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Laporta’s comments came after Tebas declared that Laporta should resign if he is unable to give a reasonable explanation for Barca’s payments made to a former senior referee Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira.
Barca have also been at odds with LaLiga regarding their strict Financial Fair Play rules.
“Joan Laporta cannot say that there is someone in charge of financial control to whom I have told that he has to do something because I don’t like Barcelona, no,” Tebas said.
“I don’t have it in for the club and he knows it, the rules are not from Tebas, but of all LaLiga’s departments. It’s only a matter of complying with them.”
Earlier this year, Barca sued LaLiga over the league’s refusal to allow them to join other clubs in increasing their salary cap by 15%.
The league argues that Barca have already increased their squad spending limit by 100% and that an additional 15% would therefore be discriminatory to other clubs.
Tebas, meanwhile, insisted on getting to the bottom of the Negreira case that has rocked Spanish football.
“The reputational damage that is being done to Spanish and international football is already irreparable,” Tebas said.
“An investigation process has begun, because an explanation is required not only for the president of LaLiga, but for all of world football. We must seek clarification, the reasons for those payments, and [find] the responsible parties.”
Barca paid over €1.3 million to a company owned by Negreira — who was the vice president of the referees committee at the time — between 2016 and 2018, when Josep Maria Bartomeu was the club’s president.
However, while those are the only payments being investigated by the tax office, it has also been disclosed that Barca paid Negreira over €7m dating back to at least 2003, spanning multiple presidencies.
Laporta’s first spell in office was from 2003 to 2010. Barca said they had hired the company for “technical reports” on refereeing.