The 21st section of the Court of Justice of Barcelona has upheld the appeal of Joan Laporta, the current president of the Barcelona football club, and overturned the decision of the judge to investigate him for bribes paid by Barça to the former vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA), José María Enríquez Negreira, during his previous term as president of the club (from 2003 to 2010).

With this decision, the accused have been cleared of criminal responsibility, as it was concluded that the payments made to the former CTA vice-president between 2008 and 2010, during the previous term of the Catalan lawyer and businessman, had been prescribed in 2015.

The Court upheld the defence's appeals and overturned the decision of Barcelona's Court, exonerating the board that controlled FC Barcelona between 2003 and 2010.

Laporta is acquitted due to the statute of limitations, leaving open the question of whether he paid the sum of 7.3 million euros in bribes to the former CTA vice-president, as accused by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor.

In addition to Laporta, the statute of limitations also applies to José María Enríquez Negreira and his son, former Barça presidents Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell, and club executives Albert Soler and Oscar Grau.

In other words, the court does not consider that the falsifications, mismanagement or sports corruption did not take place, but rather that they are time-barred, meaning that they cannot be judged because the time has passed, thus benefiting the accused.

The statute of limitations is a way of extinguishing (or acquiring) a right over time. In criminal matters, it means that if a reasonable period of time (determined by law) has elapsed since the commission of the crime without the offender being punished, the punishment would no longer fulfil its general and specific preventive purposes, and the person will therefore not be convicted.

In addition, the court's decision also exonerates the club from the accounting offence that it is alleged to have committed as a commercial entity prior to 2010 by making these payments to the former referee.

The news comes a week after the Barcelona court dropped the bribery charges against FC Barcelona in the Negreira case. When Judge Joaquín Aguirre charged the club with the offence, he argued that the Spanish Football Federation (Rfef) performs public functions and that the former vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA), Enríquez Negreira, should be considered a public official, which would extend the statute of limitations for the offence (as it could lead to disqualification from holding public office and thus a different statute of limitations).

On 24 May, the Court concluded that Negreira was not a public official and that the ordinary statute of limitations applied, meaning that the crime was time-barred without a special limitation period.

His duties could not be classified as being of general interest, regardless of the interest they might have for football fans, the court concluded.

According to the public prosecutor's calculations, Negreira allegedly pocketed more than 7.3 million euros. The investigation confirmed payments from 2001, although it is believed that the operation began in the 1990s during the presidency of the late Josep Lluís Núñez. The Public Prosecutor's Office believes that there is evidence of a crime of commercial corruption committed by the club.

In May, FC Barcelona itself requested to be admitted as a private prosecutor in the Negreira case, thus having the dual status of defendant and private prosecutor, which was ultimately not allowed due to incompatibility.