The Vox supporter behind the complaint against Laporta

BarcelonaAs ARA has confirmed, the Barça member who filed the complaint against Joan Laporta and Estruch, along with several other club directors and executives, over the past few years is named Isidro Navarro. Born in Toledo in 1972, he was a member of the club for decades, holding a membership number over 60,000, before being removed from the register. Last Thursday, he re-registered remotely (with a number over 150,000) and the following day, Friday, February 20, he submitted the complaint electronically. a complaint against the former president and candidate for re-election, and other board members and executives Highlights of his second presidential term at Camp Nou (2021-2026). Currently, the proceedings are pending acceptance by Judge Santiago Pedraz of the National Court, who on Wednesday sent the complaint to the prosecutor's office to determine whether or not it has jurisdiction to handle the case. Developments are expected in the coming days.

Besides being a Barça member and supporter, Navarro has been a representative of Vox in Pulgar, a small town in the province of Toledo. In fact, in 2023 he ran in the municipal elections in this town as the number two candidate for the far-right party, but fell short of becoming a councilor due to a lack of support. The mayor of Pulgar is Andrés Pina Aranda (PSOE). The member who filed a complaint against Laporta submitted a 30-page document accusing the former Barcelona president of being the alleged "controlling person" behind a corporate scheme designed to collect commissions through opaque jurisdictions and then reintroduce them into Spain through "opinion" businesses. The collection of commissions is outlined in the complaint, which ARA has obtained, as the alleged "base offense" from which other violations of the law, as defined in the penal code, would stem: disloyal administration, money laundering, corruption between private individuals, falsification of corporate documents, and membership in an organized crime group.

In recent statements, Laporta has categorically denied any wrongdoing during his final years as president of Barça. "The accusation is false, full of lies, and made in the middle of an election," the Barcelona lawyer stated at the presentation of his book. This is how we saved Barça (Ara Llibres), in which he also hinted at the possibility that it was all a strategy orchestrated by a rival pre-candidate. Even more forceful was the former vice-president of finance, Eduard Romeu, who in an interview on RAC1 labeled the lawsuit an "electoral tool" and expressed his conviction that it originated from one of the candidates vying to unseat Laporta in the elections on March 15. Romeu is one of the former directors sued before the National Court. In fact, the document filed last Friday identifies him as the "designer of the accounting scheme used to partially comply with La Liga regulations." Regarding the pre-candidates, Víctor Font has denied having "anything to do" with the lawsuit and has even called for its withdrawal. "We dream of a Barça that isn't embroiled in legal proceedings. Neymar, Negreira, Bartogate... The club has already been convicted once. We're in a situation that wants to harm us. Who knows which judge we'll get!" declared the leader of Nosotros in recent days, also taking the opportunity to ask Laporta for "transparency." Marc Ciria echoed this sentiment, expressing his hope upon learning of the legal proceedings against Laporta that the club "wouldn't face any difficulties or be harmed." "I'm very tired of the constant going in and out of court and I just want the club's reputation to remain unaffected," added the leader of Movimiento 42. The third pre-candidate, Xavier Vilajoana, lamented the "shadows of malpractice and lack of ethics" at Barça, reminding everyone that "you can't do whatever you want, even if you're president of Barça."

The precedent of Jordi Cases

The complaint filed by club member Isidro Navarro in the National Court is not the first against a Barça president in recent years. At the end of 2013, Jordi Cases, a pharmacist from Olesa and member of the GO Barça supporters' group, filed a lawsuit against the club and its then-president, Sandro Rosell. Cases acted because he believed that the signing of Neymar Júnior did not cost 57 million euros, but much more. Furthermore, he received no explanation in response to a registered letter requesting details of the 40 million euro difference between the amount acknowledged by the club and the 17 million euros that Santos received for the transfer. Once the complaint was processed, Barça publicly detailed the transactions, and Cases withdrew his lawsuit. Nevertheless, Judge Ruz indicted Rosell and Barça as a legal entity for tax fraud and misappropriation of funds. Rosell resigned in early 2014. At the end of 2016, Barça, which had agreed with the Tax Office to pay 5.5 million, was convicted of tax fraud for not having properly declared part of Neymar's salary.