Former Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu, his advisor Jaume Masferrer, club CEO Oscar Grau and head of legal services Roman Gomez Ponti have been arrested following a raid on the club’s office on Monday, sources have confirmed to ESPN .
A local police spokesperson also confirmed to ESPN that “there are arrests, but we cannot give names. We are currently conducting an operation with agents from the financial crime department.”
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Police arrived at Barca’s offices to search for evidence related to the “Barcagate” social media scandal and later made the arrests.
It has been a year since it was claimed that Barça, then under Bartomeu, had paid an outside company to infect former players, current players and presidential candidates on social media.
Barca firmly denied the allegations and terminated their contract with I3 Ventures, the company behind the social media accounts.
An external audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers later cleared the Catalan club of any wrongdoing and also found that Barça did not pay a heavy price for a number of services with I3, clearing the club of any form of financial corruption.
However, police are continuing to investigate the matter after opening their own investigation last year. They first raided the club’s Camp Nou office last June in search of documents related to the allegations.
On Monday, club employees were asked to leave the building when the police returned in search of more evidence to support their investigation.
Bartomeu has since resigned, although his resignation was unrelated to the “Barcagate” scandal, and the club will elect a new president on March 7. Carles Tusquets fulfills the position on an interim basis.
The allegations were first made by a local radio station last February. Evidence was revealed showing that I3 not only defended Bartomeu but was behind a number of Facebook accounts that had attacked people related to the club, including players Lionel Messi, Gerard Pique, former captain Xavi Hernandez, ex-manager Pep Guardiola and presidential candidates Victor Font and Agusti Benedito.
Bartomeu and Barca immediately terminated the contract with I3 and denied all knowledge of the accounts. Bartomeu’s advisor Masferrer was later suspended after being held responsible for the club’s relationship with I3.
However, Masferrer later returned to his role and worked with Bartomeu, and no further action was taken internally following the publication of the external audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers.