Ex-Barcelona President Josep Bartomeu and the club’s CEO Oscar Grau has been arrested following club raids conducted by the Catalan Police on today morning in Spain
Police conducted raids related to the Barcagate scandal this morning. Barcagate is a corrupt case on investigation where the club hired and paid a third company to defame their former and current players, coaches and rivals in a span of three years. The company that was hired was a social media company named I3 Ventures. The arrests that have been made are now linked with corruption charges. Also arrested was the Head of Legal Services, Roman Gomez Ponti.
Bartomeu’s right-hand man Jaume Masferrer has also been arrested.
It has been a year since it was alleged that Barca had hired a social media company to defame former players, and current players namely, former Barca Captain Xavi Hernandez, ex-coach Pep Guardiola and Leo Messi, Gerard Pique. Some of the posts that were made, had attacked Messi’s reluctance to sign a new contract with Barcelona. Barcelona and Bartomeu had completely denied the allegations of the contract with I3 Ventures at that point of time. The Catalan club was cleared of any wrongdoings by an audit house last year, but police continued their investigation.
Footage showing ‘The Mossos’ going into Camp Nou premises went viral on Twitter.
A number of eight official club members launched a complaint with the police following today’s raid.
