The Catalan club does not joke when it comes to talking about income. Indeed, according to the agency EFEFC Barcelona asked the court responsible for investigating Josep Maria Bartomeu (the former Blaugrana president) to increase its investigations into him, following embezzlement and accounting falsifications. And a case recently came to light! The Spanish club would like to know if lawyer José Ángel González Franco received a commission of €1.5 million during the transfer of Antoine Griezmann, recruited in 2019 for €120 million from Atlético de Madrid. The current president, Joan Laporta, would have requested information on this operation.
Furthermore, the club provided several exchanges of letters to clarify this file which dates from the summer period concerned. Messages in which Barça representatives are suspected of having exerted pressure on the player’s entourage so that the commission is accepted. In his defense, Bartomeu claimed that neither the Catalans nor the members of the capital paid money to the lawyer. For more details, the club also requested the hearing of the 35-year-old player as well as that of his sister (his agent), but Bartomeu denied. It remains to be seen whether the investigation into this matter will bear fruit.
