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Ammon News - Barcelona president Joan Laporta says the club never looked to "obtain some type of sporting advantage" as he answered questions surrounding investigations into payments made to a former refereeing chief.

Last month Spanish prosecutors charged the Catalan club as well as two of its former presidents with corruption after payments of more than €7.3 million ($7.8 million) to a company owned by a former refereeing chief were uncovered earlier this year.

The Barcelona president said the club paid Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, the former referee and ex-vice president of the refereeing committee of the Spanish football federation (CTA) between 1994 and 2018, for reports and advice related to refereeing.

The club "has never done anything with the goal or intention of altering the competition to achieve some type of sporting advantage," Laporta told a news conference called at Camp Nou to discuss the affair.

"I'll say it again, the former head of the referee commission had no influence in selection of match officials for games.

"On a level of sporting ethics, there was no incompatibility."

The allegations of wrongdoing are part of a "smear campaign" against the Catalan side who are currently top of La Liga, he added.

When asked who he believed was behind the smear campaign, Laporta responded "you don't need to be too clever to see that" in what seemed a clear reference to Real Madrid, Barca's great Spanish rivals.

Laporta further accused Real Madrid of "cynicism" after confirming they will appear in the case as an “injured party” and alluded to the club from the capital having also benefited from referring favouritism in the past.

As well as the club and Enriquez Negreira, two of the club's former presidents, Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell, are facing the same charge of corruption.

Laporta also took aim at Javier Tebas, who he accused of adding "fuel to the fire" after the La Liga chief's comments that Spanish football is enduring its "worst" ever moment and called for Laporta to resign if he was unable to explain the payments.

Laporta said Tebas had been "unprofessional" with his comments and that "many of these declarations are totally false".

European football's governing body Uefa announced last month it was also launching an investigation into the allegations against Barca.

Uefa regulations in effect since April 2007 allow for clubs to be removed from European competitions if they were involved in fixing matches.

When asked if he feared the club could be thrown out of next season's Champions League, Laporta said: "I don't think that Uefa would 'lynch' one of their own members without there being a legal verdict."

The National News