Barçagate (1) - El Periodico breaks the news

Under the front-page headline "Pre-Electoral Earthquake Inside The Barcelona Board: Barça Has Been Spying On Four Vice-Presidents", Catalan newspaper El Periódico brought on Thursday 24 September the story that Barcelona has been investigating four vice-presidents.

The paper claims that Catalan detective agency Método 3 has been gathering information on Barcelona vice-presidents Joan Boix (finances), Joan Franquesa (assets administration), Rafael Yuste (sports matters) and Jaume Ferrer (marketing and media) earlier this year.

The order for the investigations was reportedly given by Barcelona chief executive Joan Oliver. At the request of one of the four directors concerned, who wanted to have his background checked, Oliver would have asked the security services of the club to contact an agency that would make a report of four vice-presidents, three of them not being alerted about the investigation.

The detective agency carried out at the end of April of this year a so-called risk analysis, examining the professional and private lives of the targets to see if something could be used against one of them during the upcoming election campaign.

When one of the four vice-presidents who were spied upon found out what was going on, he reportedly informed his colleagues and they met with Barcelona president Joan Laporta to ask for further explanations. The president showed his surprise when confronted with the story and told the directors he didn't know about the investigations.

Laporta was able to convince the four board members that he was not aware of what had been going on and, although one of the four still wouldn't exclude to take legal actions after next year's elections, it was in the end agreed to silence the case in order to safeguard the stability of the club.

this is the first of ten parts on the case. the second part will cover the reaction of barcelona ceo joan oliver. you can read the whole series here.