Laporta brings “Spain is stealing from us” to football

Barça would be the victim. So, literally, It was played by Joan Laporta. Two months and two days after it became known that this entity paid 7.3 million euros to another Spanish judge, the only thing expected was for him to resign. Or, at least, if the apologies he offered this Monday are part of his defense strategy when he sees himself cornered by justice, to give some explanation.

Laporta, like much of the caste of the independent world, lives in a parallel reality. For this reason he insisted on rattling the victim –Remember that Spain is stealing from us?—, in clichés —he contrasted Barcelona, ​​which is more than a club, with Real Madrid of the Franco regime, in the middle of 2023!— and in silence —that is not relevant, that did not happen during my mandate. The staging, in a giant like Barcelona, ​​which has dealt with billions a year, with some CDs and some folders as the final proof that Negreira has filed reports for the club, seems typical of a school project at the end of the year.

Laporta let it all go without blushing. Only someone very cynical can try to dodge the fact that those more than 1,200 million pesetas paid to judges number two were not a big deal. Because they entered him over the age of 18. And because, furthermore, all movements are documented in the club’s accounts, year after year. Alleged fraud but, yes, very professional.

Barcelona has a few problems, as it continues its forward flight. He manages an estimated debt of 1,500 million and embarks on a pharaonic project like Espai Barça. It is decapitalizing by mortgaging future revenues from the coming decades in so-called bullion, and at the same time trying to distract attention with the story that before it did not have the money to sign Messi, but now it does. And so everything.

Such is the state of disintegration of Barcelona’s elite, that the club, as well as the independence movement in the bud of the process, needed an enemy. When the nationalist supremacy had to flee the Parliament by helicopter, the idea was invented that there was no other way out but independence, because Spain represented evil. Now that Laporta doesn’t even have to balance the accounts without accounting engineering, the case of Negreiro Shame turns to pride. Against the world. Until the final failure.

There may not be a firm pulse in Spain to punish the alleged buying of number two referees, but UEFA does not seem willing to look elsewhere. And there is already less strain Laporta’s victim.