World Sports: Bartomeu denies creating fake accounts to attack others, but police found account evidence

World Sports reported that former Barcelona president Bartomeu denied creating a fake account.

Former Barcelona president Bartomeu insisted that when he led the signing of the contract with Nicestream Company (associated with I3 Ventures) in 2017, there was "absolutely no talk about creating fake accounts."

At the time, the club needed to monitor discussions about Barcelona on social media amid Neymar's departure and unrest in Catalonia. Bartomeu and his then-cabinet chief Jaume Masferrer were defendants in the trial of Jaume Roures for persistent aggravated insult.

Mediapro co-founder Roures asked for a fine of 15,000 euros and compensation of 100,000 euros to be donated to the Raval Children's Home. The former president admitted to being aware of the existence of a Facebook page called "Jaume, un film de terror" and the account @jaumedeterror (later changed to @jaumedeterror2) on the X platform, which posted messages against Roures, but insisted that he "did not know the content because he had never accessed it".

The club paid Nicestream €2.3 million to obtain all comments and information posted about the club on social media. Masferrer denied ordering the creation of the unofficial club account and said its purpose was to "promote positive news about Barcelona". He admitted that he had learned about Roures' content through reports provided by the company, but believed that the content was "critical, humorous and did not incite violence."

Carlos Ibañez, the administrator of Nicestream, also said that Barcelona entrusted them with reputation management and decided to create "a containment channel" to deal with the attack on accounts related to Roures. However, prosecutors believe this was an ongoing campaign. Jaume Roures claims that over a two-year period from 2018 to 2020, he was subjected to an "extremely serious digital attack" sponsored by the club with the intention of damaging his professional reputation and affecting his family life.

During the police investigation, a police officer from the Central Police Station provided a report proving that the club's top brass learned of the existence of the false account through a surveillance file seized at Bartomeu's residence.

After the trial, former president Bartomeu reiterated his defense: "We did not know or authorize the content of the accounts that attacked Roures. During my tenure as president, more than 60 accounts mocked me with emoticons, and some even exist now."

source:tỷ lệ tỷ số 7m