The former vice president of the refereeing committee in Spain, José María Enríquez Negreira, must testify as a defendant over payments his companies received from Barcelona after a judge dismissed his dementia claim, judicial sources have confirmed to EFE.

Negreira’s legal team alleged the 78-year-old’s condition makes him incapable of being questioned. He was pictured falling over as he arrived for a health check last year to determine if he was fit to be cross-examined.

– Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, more (U.S.)

However, the case’s judge, Joaquín Aguirre, ruled on Thursday that while Negreira does suffer from some memory impairment, he retains the mental faculties to appear in court and, potentially, be prosecuted.

Negreira has subsequently been summoned to testify on Feb. 21.

Barça paid Negreira’s companies more than €7 million ($7.3m) between 2001 and 2018 while he was the vice president of the committee. He had previously been a referee in the Spanish top flight.

Last March, Negreira was among those charged with corruption relating to the payments, along with his son, Javier Enríquez Romero. Barcelona were also charged, as were the former club presidents Sandro Rosell and Josep María Bartomeu, as well as former executives Oscar Grau and Albert Soler.

Bribery charges were added in September after the judge said Negreira “exercised public functions” as vice president of the committee, which equates him to a civil servant.

In October, current Barça president Joan Laporta was also charged with bribery when the judge ruled his first spell in charge, between 2003 and 2010, should not be time-barred.

Laporta has insisted the money was for “technical reports about referees” and, along with the club, has repeatedly denied ever “buying referees or influence.”

However, prosecutors have accused Rosell and Bartomeu of having an agreement with Negreira in which “he would carry out actions aimed at favouring Barca in the decision-making of the referees in the matches played by the club and thus in the results of the competitions.”

Rosell was Barca president from 2010 to 2014 before Bartomeu replaced him. After six years at the helm of the Catalan club, Bartomeu resigned in 2020, with Laporta elected as his replacement in 2021.