La Liga
LaLiga in the bag, but Barcelona still face huge problems
Barcelona may have won the LaLiga title on Sunday, but their outstanding domestic campaign has been somewhat overshadowed by turmoil off the pitch including deepening financial problems and a refereeing scandal that could drag on for years.
Spanish prosecutors in March filed a complaint over alleged payments Barcelona made from 2001 to 2018 totalling 7.3 million euros ($8 million) to firms owned by former refereeing official Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira. A Barcelona court has agreed to take on the case.
Also in March, European soccer’s governing body UEFA opened its own formal investigation into the club, looking into the same payments.
The club has denied any wrongdoing, saying that it paid an external consultant who supplied it with “technical reports related to professional refereeing”, something many clubs do.
But Enriquez Negreira was the vice-president of the refereeing committee of the Spanish Football Association – one of the highest refereeing officials in the country – from 1993 to 2018, covering the entire period concerned.
However the case may play out it has dealt a massive blow to the club’s image, and could continue to do so as the legal process and UEFA’s separate probe drag on.
FINANCIAL HEADACHES
And it comes at a time when Barcelona are already facing huge accounting problems related to their massive wage bill, to the COVID-19 pandemic and to the club’s 1.6 billion-euro renovation project.
Restricted by LaLiga’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules, Barca were unable to re-sign club great Lionel Messi, who left as a free agent for Paris St Germain in the summer of 2021.
According to LaLiga, Barca are still about 200 million euros over the cap and remain unable to register new contracts signed months ago with defender Ronald Araujo and midfielder Gavi, key players whose future is in doubt unless the club finds a way to fit them into its budget.
Crashing out of European competition early this season dealt another blow to the club’s finances, which are so fragile the board has pulled several levers including selling stakes in its TV rights and media divisions to try to balance the books.
The club will also leave its iconic but outdated Camp Nou stadium for the next few seasons as it starts its hugely expensive renovation project.
In this season’s budget, Barcelona’s board boldly predicted that the team would reach the quarter-finals of the Champions League, and bring in plenty of related income.
Instead, they crashed out at the group stage of Europe’s top club competition and were then knocked out of the Europa League by Manchester United.
That piled the pressure on coach Xavi Hernández to win the league – another budget prediction – as Barca’s last way to limit the damage to their 2022-23 income.
While the fans will rightly celebrate Barcelona’s romp to the LaLiga title with four games to spare, inside the club’s high offices there is still plenty to worry about.
-Reuters
It was mission accomplished, said Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti after his side fought back from two-goals behind to snatch a rip-roaring 4-4 draw on Tuesday for a 5-4 aggregate win that put them through to the Copa del Rey final.
Ancelotti brushed off questions about a sub-par performance by his side and praised his players’ effort in what he considered a highly entertaining encounter.
“We have achieved our goal today which was to reach the final and there is not much time to think about it,” Ancelotti told a press conference.
“It was an entertaining game with some mistakes and a lot of good things. It was fun and we are in the final.
“I never saw ourselves out of it because anything can happen at the Bernabeu. When we have to come from behind, we never give up. We never give up, especially at home, with the fans by our side.”
Ancelotti said David Alaba was not to blame after he deflected two balls into his own goal, calling it “bad luck” by the Austrian defender, but urged his defence to play with better focus moving forward.
“It’s not good to concede four goals in a game,” Ancelotti said.
“Right now we are a team that has a lot of effectiveness up-front, but little balance.
“However, we can’t ignore what we did in attack, scoring four goals against Real is not that easy. I think we are doing quite well.”
Real Madrid, who have won the Spanish Cup only once in over a decade, will play either Barcelona or Atletico Madrid in a mouth-watering final in Seville next month.
Atletico fought back to hold Barca to a thrilling 4-4 draw ahead of Wednesday’s second-leg in Madrid.
-Reuters
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Real Madrid’s legendary coach Carlo Ancelotti will go on trial next week for allegedly failing to declare income to Spain’s tax office, the Madrid court which will hear the case has said.
Prosecutors are seeking a jail term of four years and nine months for the 65-year-old Italian, accusing him of having cost Spain’s treasury more than one million euros ($1.1 million) in undeclared earnings from image rights in 2014 and 2015.
The trial will begin on Wednesday and it is expected to last two days, a spokesman for the court said.
Ancelotti, who as a coach has won a record five Champions League trophies including three with Real, must be present for the hearings, he added.
Prosecutors accuse him of only declaring in his tax returns the personal remuneration received from Real Madrid during those two years even though he himself declared himself to be a tax resident in Spain and indicated his home was in Madrid.
They accuse Ancelotti of allegedly setting up a “confusing” and “complex” system of shell companies to hide his extra earnings from his image rights as well as from other sources such as real estate.
A Spanish court in 2023 ordered Ancelotti to stand trial over the affair, but did not set a date.
Ancelotti dismissed the affair last year as “an old story that I hope will be resolved soon” when he was asked about the case.
He took over at Real Madrid in 2013, leaving in May 2015, before being appointed at Bayern Munich the following year.
The former Italy international midfielder, who as a player won the European Cup twice with AC Milan, later managed Napoli and Everton before returning to Real Madrid in 2021.
Aside from his success in the Champions League he has won domestic league titles with Madrid and Milan, in England with Chelsea, in Germany with Bayern Munich and in France with Paris Saint-Germain.
-AFP
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Spain’s former soccer chief Luis Rubiales told Reuters on Thursday he would appeal a court ruling which found him guilty of sexual assault for kissing player Jenni Hermoso without her consent.-
-Reuters
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