Barcelona has been fined €23 million by a court for falsifying agent payments between 2012 and 2015. The investigation covered the tenure of Sandro Rosell as president, who was succeeded by Josep Maria Bartomeu in January 2014, with the inquiry concluding in June 2015 after an 18-month span.
The Catalan giants were found guilty of not accurately reporting payments to agents to evade taxes, redirecting the funds to players represented by those agents. The court stated that Barcelona was compensating agents for non-existent services.
While the club owes €8,764,118 in taxes, penalties for the breaches in each year have led to a substantial €23 million fine.
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Barcelona swiftly announced their intention to appeal the ruling, expressing surprise at the National Court’s disregard for recent Supreme Court jurisprudence on the matter. The club argued that the divergent criteria of the National Court was unexpected, given that another section had accepted a similar appeal a few months prior.
In their statement, Barcelona clarified that the ruling does not currently impose any payment obligation on the club, as the contingency has been adequately provisioned in their annual accounts.