On Thursday, September 28, 2023 at 10:16:05 PM UTC+3, Michael Falkner wrote:
Judicial authorities in Spain are gathering evidence that the entire dominant run of Barcelona was aided and promoted by seven million Euros paid to the vice president of Spain's refereeing division.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/38510081/barcelona-probed-suspected-bribery-ref-case-report
Mike
If you ask me, 7 million in 18 years doesn't sound like that much, at this level. About 400,000 a year. Pocket money for Messi. I'd imagine much more would be needed for actually paying refs so that they favor you significantly.
Besides, I understand this is just in Spain. Now, IIRC in that period Barca would have hardly needed special treatment against anybody else in Spain than Real. And I find it very difficult to swallow that somehow Barca's influence over the refs in Spain
was bigger that Real's. They must have had their connections too and would have known if something fishy was going on against them.
I'd also ask if this thing with the "technical reports about refs" is something that only Barca did. If so, then indeed it seems strange. If others do it too then I don't see the problem.
Of course anything is possible but right now my guess would be this is going nowhere.
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