As president of Barça, but, five years later, the case is still in the instructional phase in the courts. And they say that if it is slow, justice ceases to be fair.
On February 17, 2020, in the SER chain, we uncovered that Barça had hired a company to launch messages on social networks that favored its president and harmed those who considered their opponents. The messages attacked former leaders such as Joan Laporta, future candidates for elections such as Víctor Font, entrepreneurs such as Jaume Roures and relevant figures of Barça such as Guardiola, Xavi, Piqué or Messi. In addition, the hiring had been made by eluding the internal controls of the club itself and paying a high price for the services, around one million euros each year. The news was baptized as Barçagate By a journalist partner, and thus remained in the imaginary, although many people prefer to call it Bartogatethe police put him Hans case and in Wikipedia it appears as.
“They will not give you a Pulitzer for this news,” one of those involved told us when we contacted him to explain what we had discovered. First he had denied us the information, but given the evidence of all our evidence, he ended up recognizing the facts, although he fell importance. The leaders of that time dragged the club what they called “the mud war”, that is, the battle for the story on social networks. They felt attacked on the Internet, at least they said, and wanted to counterattack. They did it with money from Barça and defaming Barça members.
and ended up engulfing Bartomeu because they tried to deny something we could demonstrate. They hid, manipulated information and falsified an audit to protect themselves. Six Barça executives resigned a few days after the news was known, a group of partners denounced the case before justice and the police opened an investigation for alleged unfair administration and corruption among individuals. Eight months later, Bartomeu resigned as president. We were in full Covid-19 Pandemia and Messi had asked to leave after losing eight goals against Bayern Munich in the Champions League.
But five years have passed and. The case continues in an instructional phase and has not yet declared any of the investigated. It is incomprehensible so much delay basically because, and here is the tongue twisted, everything that could be known is already known and if there is something that has not been known, it will never be known. There is some judicial neglect with this case. According to the police, Josep Maria Bartomeu was Barçagate’s brain; Jaume Masferrer, the executing arm; Óscar Grau, was the useful fool; and Román Gómez Ponti, the necessary collaborator. But none has declared and, therefore, has not been able to defend themselves or have been able to verify to what extent they are involved or apologize to each other. They were president, Communication Advisor, General Director and Legal Chief of Barça at that time and are still the four investigated of a cause where Carlos Ibáñez, the head of I3 Ventures, also appears, who before collaborating with Barça had worked for civil society Catalan.
Beyond the criminal case, the Barçagate He revealed a negligent and ethically reprehensible management, the example of a bad way of governing. Uncovering him was like the story of the child who screams that the emperor is naked. But five years later, social networks continue to show the same trenches and identical suspicions. The same circus, different artists. Barça has been, is and possibly will always be, victim of its own intestine wars. A very large club with a very small environment where everyone wants to control the story and many are still too pending social networks. Whether they or their closest collaborators, whether one way or another, we are always the same.
Sique Rodríguez is the director of the ‘What do you play!’ of being Catalonia and of ‘the bar’
