Prosecutor implicates Bartomeu in Neymar transfer investigation

What­ever is hap­pen­ing on the field, it seems there are no quiet weeks for FC Barcelona. Mon­day was sup­posed to be a slow day, until the Ney­mar case once more reared its ugly head. The lat­est chap­ter in the Ney­mar saga is that yes­ter­day the pros­e­cu­tor of the Audiència Na­cional, José Per­als, called on the judge over­see­ing the case, Pablo Ruz, to charge the cur­rent Barça pres­i­dent, Josep Maria Bar­tomeu, with fraud in 2014 amount­ing to 2,845,700 mil­lion euros. The pros­e­cu­tor de­cided on this course of ac­tion after re­ceiv­ing a re­port from the tax of­fice that ac­cused FC Barcelona of not de­clar­ing 2.6 mil­lion euros tax aris­ing from a con­tract in the Ney­mar trans­fer. Per­als ar­gues that the club had a duty to pay the tax bill last year, now that the player is a res­i­dent in Spain.

How­ever, the sup­posed ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties do not end here. Barça is also ac­cused of not pay­ing tax in 2014 worth 234,000 euros from image rights and an­other 11,700 euros tax from a pay­ment to the player's agent, in this case Ney­mar's fa­ther. The total tax bill comes to 2,845,700 mil­lion euros. Per­als called on Ruz to open this file as part
of the main in­ves­ti­ga­tion into the Ney­mar case. He also ar­gued that the case should go to trial as soon as pos­si­ble.