"Pact with the authorities not made to save the neck of Bartomeu"

The head of the legal services department of FC Barcelona, Roman Gomez Ponti, and the lawyer Cristobal Martell, appeared in a press conference to explain the agreement that the club reached with the tax authorities and the state's legal team over the 'Neymar case'.

During their explanations, they denied that there was a pact in order to absolve president Josep Maria Bartomeu and former president Sandro Rosell, in exchange for the club accepting the punishment.

"There has not been any companionship or deception (between the two sides) to save the necks of a president or ex-president because this does not work like that. You can not just buy a person's absolution in exchange for (something else)", Gomez Ponti insisted. 

"They are not cards you can swap, these things can not be done like that because they are subject to a principle of legality", added Martell.

Both also added that "it has not been nice to recommend an agreement in which the club is found guilty" and for that reason "we did not feel like celebrating it like a victory, but it is the best of all the solutions", claimed Ponti, who then explained "an agreement was now possible as the tax authorities were more receptive to one being reached."

Martell agreed and commented: "It is a business decision; faced with the abstract risk of 22 million euros, a fine was agreed of 5.5 million euros. I have not said there was no tax crime committed, the evidence suggests there is a tax infraction", but he went on to downplay the importance of this:

"Complementary tax declarations are made every day" by many companies, Martell said with irony, "because usually, when you make a mistake, you do so in your favour".