According to Marca, the president of UEFA, Aleksander Ceferin, wants to exclude Barcelona from next season’s Champions League due to their referee corruption scandal.
UEFA are allegedly planning to reach a decision on whether Barcelona should be prohibited from next campaign’s Champions League in June.
This is coming after the revelation that the club made payments to the tune of about £6.5 million.
The club reportedly made those payments to an organization that had affiliations with a Spanish refereeing official.
Barcelona have been charged with Corruption
Barcelona have been indicted with corruption by prosecutors over supposed payments made by the team to a former vice-president of the Spanish referees Committee, Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira.
The Blaugrana side have been accused of keeping a bond with the former vice president of Spain’s referee committee, Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, in which money exchanged hands and he allegedly carried out actions that would “lead to Barcelona being favoured in the decision making of the referees”.
The money paid by Barcelona was made to DASNIL and NILSAT, two firms that are owned by Enriquez Negreira.
UEFA asked for its own findings into the matter last month, with the governing body in Europe having the ability to punish erring teams.
UEFA can prohibit clubs from the UEFA Champions League for one term if they are found to have been embroiled in match fixing under the competition’s guidelines.
Based on an information from Marca, UEFA wants investigators Mirjan Koller and Jean-Samuel Leuba to go through a fast method to sort out the cased before next campaign’s competition.
Europe’s football governing body supposedly wants a decision to be made in June over Barcelona’s status in European competitions for next season.
This move would give room for possible appeals by Barcelona to the UEFA’s Appeals Body and the Court of Arbitration for Sport, if the club were sanctioned over the matter.
Barcelona are in line to qualify automatically to the group stage of next season’s UEFA Champions League, with the club presently occupying a 12-point lead at the top of the La Liga.
Ceferin in an interview earlier this week spoke about how serious the case is
Aleksander Ceferin in an interview with Slovenian newspaper Ekipa, said he had been informed about the seriousness of the matter.
“I have been informed and the situation is extremely serious. It is so serious that, in my opinion, it is one of the most serious in football that I have seen.”
Ceferin stated he could not make any further comments on the matter, due to the findings being conducted by an independent disciplinary committee.
The Spanish heavyweights have constantly denied any wrongdoing indicating that they have never made any move to influence the outcome of any game or the decisions of referees in matches.
Aleksander Ceferin Re-elected UEFA president
On Wednesday, the Slovenian was re-elected for a four-year term as president of UEFA, the European football governing body.
Aleksander Ceferin was re-elected unopposed, and he would be the president of UEFA until the year 2027.
Barcelona released a statement on Monday asking for Javier Tebas to resign
On Monday, Barcelona put out a statement asking for the President of La Liga Javier Tebas to resign after a report in La Vanguardia that linked him with providing false information in the Negreira case.
Joan Laporta has also stated in the past that Barcelona are being targeted but they would do everything possible to clear their name.
Based on merit of this campaign, the supposed decision set to be taken by UEFA might look harsh but if thorough investigations are conducted and Barcelona are guilty then they have also acted in manners that are unsportsmanlike and misappropriate.
And as such the Catalonia giants deserve to be punished according to the dictates of the law “if” they are found to be guilty of the allegations.
