Barcelona has filed a grievance with local prosecutors against former club president Josep Maria Bartomeu and his board following an investigation into “possible irregularities”, the club aforementioned in a statement on Wednesday. once being elected Barcelona president eleven months ago, Joan Laporta commissioned a financial audit and hired company investigators to look into the previous board.
“On February 1st the results will be given in public of the in-depth investigation caused as a consequence of a lack of economic due dilligence and with the object of detecting attainable irregularities within the management of the Club throughout the previous presidential mandate,” the club aforesaid on Wednesday.
“The announcement also will embrace details about the grievance filed by the club to the Barcelona Provincial Prosecutor’s office based on facts that derive from the conclusions of the rhetorical investigation.”
Reuters was unable to contact Bartomeu for comment. He has antecedently denied wrongdoing or mismanagement.
Last August, Laporta had mentioned that Barcelona had paid “disproportionate amounts” of cash in commissions to intermediaries who worked on transfers made by the club throughout Bartomeu’s time in charge.
Bartomeu was arrested in March as a part of a police probe involving allegations of improper management and business corruption which conjointly saw the club’s Camp Nou offices raided.
The investigation stemmed from the ‘Barcagate’ affair during which the club was suspected of getting a selling practice to orchestrate a social media campaign against current and former personnel who had been critical to the club.
Following his arrest, Bartomeu defended his time at the club in an interview with Barcelona newspaper Sport.
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“Our management was not disastrous and LaLiga, UEFA and therefore the auditors say so,” he said. “With 180 million (euros) in profits, and with Forbes valuing us as the most precious club within the world. This serious and rigorous management was cut back by the appearance of the pandemic, which led to a drop in income of some five hundred million.”
