Barcelona’s biggest non-referee controversies in La Liga

Despite Barcelona's success, they’ve also been involved in some of the most notorious scandals in history.

The saga of Barcelona‘s payments to a company owned by former referees committee vice president, José María Enríquez Negreira, continues as more information reveals the extent of the club’s association with Negreira. Although the prosecutor’s office is only investigating the payments between 2016 and 2018, Barcelona’s involvement with Negreira goes back as far as 2001 with total payments from the club reaching €7 million. It’s also been revealed that the Blaugranas quadrupled the payments to Negreira in 2009 under the presidency of Joan Laporta. It will now need to be seen whether Barcelona face any serious punishment.

However, the suspicion that has constantly surrounded Barcelona about receiving beneficial treatment has magnified and brought up many controversial moments that have involved Barcelona both on and off the field. While Barcelona has interestingly found themselves on the right side of some of the most scandalous refereeing decisions in recent history, they’ve also been involved in several non-refereeing controversies that have not even seen the club be punished. In fact, some of them even involve the league and federation as some of their decisions seem to always benefit Barcelona in pivotal moments. What are some of these notorious scandals?

Before beginning, some honorable mentions include:

• Barcelona making signings while having a $1 billion debt.

• The gazpacho game.

• Rival fans not being able to attend a game at the Camp Nou with their team’s jersey outside of the away section.

• Robert Lewandowski’s three-match ban being temporarily lifted.

• The Monday Clásico

• The 2019 rescheduled Clásico due to “political” reasons.

• Barcelona tapping up Antoine Griezmann

• Media mogul, Jaume Roures, financing Joan Laporta’s financial guarantee for him to return as president of Barcelona in 2021.