Barça will be able to play in the Champions League next season. UEFA will allow the Barça club to participate in the highest European competition despite being investigated for the ‘Negreira case’, the biggest scandal in the history of Spanish football uncovered in February for the multimillion-dollar payments from the entity to the former vice president of the referees.
UEFA informed Barcelona this Friday of its presence in the draw for the Champions League group stage to be held on August 31 in Monte Carlo, after the organization’s Control and Disciplinary Commission has concluded that it should not be punished until there is a court ruling. “We are counting on the fact that we will play the Champions League. I have had personal meetings with Ceferin and he has understood the explanations. They wanted to use the ‘Negreira case’ to veto us in the Champions League, but they cannot condemn us before judging us,” Joan Laporta proclaimed hours before it became known that Barça was left without a sanction by UEFA.
Contrary to what happened with Osasuna, which will not be able to participate in the Conference League after the sentence received for match-fixing in the 2013-2014 season, Barça will have a free hand to play the next edition of the Champions League, where as champion of Liga will be seeded in the draw, along with Manchester City, Sevilla, PSG, Bayern Munich, Napoli, Benfica and Feyenoord.
If it had been punished with exclusion from the Champions League and from all European competition, Barcelona, already so gripped by a worrying economic crisis that has hit all its professional sections, could have lost at least 70 million euros next season.
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