Barca scandal 'serious' but Ceferin doesn't comment on details

April 6 - UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin believes the refereeing scandal facing Barcelona is an extremely serious problem for the Spanish giants.

Ceferin declined to answer questions on the matter at Wednesday's post-Congress press conference, but two days earlier let the spade out of the bag by making his views known in an interview with the Slovenian newspaper Ekipa.

UEFA announced last month that it had opened its own investigation into payments Barca made to the former vice-president of Spain's refereeing committee between 2001 and 2018.

Barca said they paid Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira for 'technical refereeing reports' and denied ever influencing the officials.

“The situation is extremely serious,” Ceferin told Ekipa. "It's so serious that, in my opinion, it's one of the most serious [situations] in football I've ever seen."

Prosecutors are suing Barca for alleged corruption, with La Liga president Javier Tebas describing the scandal as "the worst reputational crisis" he can remember in Spanish football.

“I cannot comment directly on this for two reasons,” Ceferin added to the newspaper. “Firstly, because we have an independent disciplinary commission in charge of this. And second, because I haven't covered this issue in detail."

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