Police entered Barcelona’s stadium on Monday in a search and seize operation, with reports that former president Josep Maria Bartomeu is among those who have been arrested.
The club said local authorities from Mossos d’Esquadra’s Economic Offences Unit were at the team’s headquarters on Monday morning but did not provide any more detail.
Spanish media said the operation was related to last year’s “Barça-gate,” in which club officials were accused of launching a smear campaign against current and former players who were critical of the club and then-president Bartomeu by allegedly hiring a social media company to publicly discredit them. He, current chief executive Òscar Grau, and Barcelona’s head of legal services, Román Gómez Pontí were arrested on suspicion of “unfair administration, corruption between individuals and money laundering,” according to Cadena SER radio station.
Catalan police later confirmed they had made several arrests, without confirming the number made or the identities of those detained. Continue reading