This season hasn’t been a great period in Barcelona’s history, both on and off the pitch.
On it, despite being two points ahead of Real Madrid in La Liga before the lockdown, the Catalans now find themselves trailing by four points and highly likely to lose out on another title to their fiercest rivals.
Off it, the ‘Barcagate’ scandal dominated for some while after it had been suggested that the club had paid a company, i3 Ventures, to discredit playing staff, per Cadena Ser and cited by Sports Illustrated.
Sport reported on Monday that after a thorough investigation, the club have been cleared of any wrongdoing, and that surely has to please president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, who seems to be consistently under pressure these days for one thing or another.
Now Barcelona want the media that reported the scandal to put things right in light of the findings.
“In the contraction of the services for the analysis of social media, there was no smear campaign commissioned,” Vives said, reported by Sport.
“There was no corrupt conduct. The value of the services was within the market price range.
“[…] After two months of accusations, Barça is demanding this rectification of information from the media, which has been denied by a report written by auditors who have had unlimited access to information.
“Failing to do so, Barcelona reserves the appropriate legal actions in defense of its legitimate interests.”
Although it probably is too late for a La Liga title win, with no more off-field distractions and after the way they played against Villarreal on Sunday, perhaps Barca might be in with a surprise shout of the Champions League.