Police raids Barcelona, arrests CEO Oscar Grau, Ex-President Bartomeu, others

The Spanish police on Monday raided Barcelona football club and arrested the club’s CEO, Oscar Grau and Roman Gómez Ponti, the Barca’s head of legal, according to Cadena SER radio.

Barcelona’s former president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, and his right-hand man, Jaume Masferrer, were also arrested.

They were arrested on suspicion of “unfair administration, corruption between individuals and money laundering” after paying money in instalments to avoid internal financial controls.

This is coming amid the continued investigation into ‘BarcaGate’, in which Barcelona’s officials were accused of launching a smear campaign against the current (Lionel Messi, Gerard Pique) and former players (Pep Guardiola and others) who were critical of the Catalan club and Bartomeu.

Recall that Bartomeu and his board of directors resigned last year in controversy.

Local authorities from Mossos d’Esquadra entered Barcelona’s stadium as the Blaugrana’s finance, legal and compliance departments are investigated.

The ‘BarcaGate; scandal, which has been investigated for almost 12 months, has long been denied by Bartomeu.