The Mossos d’Esquadra consider that there could be a crime of revealing secrets. The people who leaked the contracts of Leo Messi and Gerard Piqué. Point to Òscar Grau, former general manager of FC Barcelona, and Román Gómez-Ponti as presumed culprits, former head of the club’s legal services.
“Everything indicates that Óscar Grau and Román Gómez-Ponti wanted and intended to make public the personal data of FC Barcelona workers. Such as Leo Messi and Gerard Piqué. Josep Maria Bartomeu had direct knowledge of these claims. It cannot be ruled out that these people be collaborators”, say the Mossos in a report included in the summary of the ‘Barçagate’ case.
The police report explains that “some specific conversations” were found on the electronic devices of Román Gómez-Ponti and Òscar Grau. which are being investigated in the ‘Barçagate’ investigation process. “which would be related to possible acts constituting a crime of revealing secrets.”
On January 31, 2021, the newspaper ‘El Mundo’, which later also published more information on the contracts of Messi and Gerard Piqué, revealed the contract between the Argentine star and FC Barcelona, reporting that the Barça club should pay the Argentine player 555,237,619 euros gross in four seasons.
A police report points to the former general manager of Barcelona
According to the Mossos, “the media could not be criminally responsible for publishing the news, but who would be criminally responsible could be the person or persons who appropriated the contracts and then leaked them to the press.”
On the same January 31, after the publication of the news, the former president Bartomeu, Gómez-Ponti and Grau sent messages through a WhatsApp group in which there were also other directors and executives of the club and which appears in the report of the regional police.
“Oscar (Grau), this leak has only been able to leave the club. It has never been made public and I understand that only a few people have access to Messi’s contract. I don’t think it was a leak from him to leave. Whoever leaked it ago damage to the club”, wrote Bartomeu.
Later, Gómez-Ponti replies: “Barto, really, you can’t be such a good person with this sewer rat. The Barcelona club has given him everything and he has dedicated himself to marking a dictatorship of signings, transfers, renewals, sponsors just for him, etc. I will never be able to do it! The renewal of Suárez and Jordi Alba, or the renewal commission for Fati would have to be added to the figures of his contract”.
The former Barcelona president was aware of this
And he adds: “Rodrigo Messi (brother of the soccer player) agent? But he doesn’t even know how to read! and, on top of that, he had a drug dealer as a partner. And, above all, the accumulation of blackmail and rudeness that the club and those who we work in it have suffered from this hormonal dwarf, who owes LIFE to Barcelona. When things go wrong (pandemic) you receive his mythical message of ‘president, lower the salary of others, but not me and Luis (Suárez) touch us.’
To this long message, Grau responded with a brief “yes”. And, Bartomeu, for his part, said that he “agrees on many things” although “Barça comes first and this type of article damages the club’s image.”
Immediately afterward, Oriol Tomás, director of the club during Bartomeu’s tenure, pointed out that it gave him “the feeling that it is part of an electoral strategy (in March 2021 there were elections) and behind it there can only be Laporta and his contacts”. And he considered that “the more disastrous Barcelona is, the more aspirations for Laporta.”
On the other hand, in a conversation on February 3 belonging to the same WhatsApp group. Gómez-Ponti again referred to Leo Messi derogatorily, after the Barcelona player announced a complaint against those responsible for the club who had leaked the information.
They received a commission for doing nothing.
“Barto, I reiterate, if they file a complaint with me, I will explain things. And the only good thing for them was that they received a commission for doing nothing. Taking advantage of the fact that the hormonal dwarf made the lineups for the coach”. Said the then head of services juridical of the Catalan club.
Previously, on March 22, 2020, in the midst of negotiating a salary reduction for the Barça squad due to the coronavirus pandemic, Gómez-Ponti wrote this fragment in an email addressed to Bartomeu and with a copy to Grau: “It would not be a bad idea to publish the contracts of the millionaires of the first team so that people can disavow them in a public way”.
In fact, on August 14, 2020, after the elimination of the Champions League quarterfinals at the hands of Bayern Munich 2-8. Gómez-Ponti defended in a WhatsApp conversation with Bartomeu that “they would have to filter contracts” by Gerard Piqué.
“Example of the son of a great bitch without any scruples: Piqué”. Also sentenced the head of legal services before copying the statements made by the ex-Central Barça player after the elimination in which he requested structural changes in the club.
