Who is Oscar Grau? Barcelona CEO arrested in Barcagate scandal; accused of corruption

Things have gone from bad to worse for Football Club Barcelona as three of their high-profile club management people are currently in police custody. It is being reported that former club president Josep Maria Bartomeu, alongside Roman Gomez Ponti, who heads the legal services of the club and the club’s CEO Oscar Grau have been arrested on Monday. We have a look at who is Oscar Grau and the Barcagate scandal which led to the unprecedented turn of events.

ESPN reported that the incident transpired after police from Mossos d’Esquadra entered and raided the club’s offices in order to look for evidence regarding the Barcagate social media scandal and then had the Barcelona CEO arrested alongside Roman Gomez Ponti and Josep Bartomeu. 

Who is Oscar Grau?

Oscar Grau is the former CEO of FC Barcelona who had been instrumental in running the club since his appointment in September 2016. Earlier the director of the FCBEscola soccer schools, Oscar Grau was handed the opportunity to become the CEO and take over from Nacho Mestre.

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What is Barcagate social media scandal?

The Barcagate scandal alleged that Joseph Bartomeu during his time as the president of FC Barcelona paid money to a third-party company asking them to smear the image of current and former players alongside other presidential candidates on social media. Over a year ago, the club had denied the allegations and had also gone on to terminate their contract with the firm responsible for operating FC Barcelona's social media accounts — I3 Ventures. 

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The allegations stated that I3 Ventures along with former cub president Josep Bartomeu, CEO Oscar Grau, and others were involved with various Facebook accounts that had attacked people related to the club. It alleged that those social media attacks were meant for former players like Xavi Hernandez and Pep Guardiola. It was later on also revealed that the attacks were also made on current first-team players like Gerard Pique, Lionel Messi alongside top management members of the board like Victor Font and Agusti Benedito who are currently presidential candidates for the club's election set to take place on March 7.

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PricewaterhouseCoopers later did an external audit that cleared off the Balguna outfit of pulling off such an act and also cleared any issue stating the club had paid more money to I3 Ventures in order to get a various number of services provided by them.  However, the local authorities continued to investigate the story and look into the matter while conducting their independent research on the same since the beginning of 2020.

The police conducted several raids at the FC Barcelona office with the first one coming in June last year where they focused on finding documents that reveal any information on the allegations on the Catalan club. They raided the club's office again on Monday as the employees were sent out of the offices and were made to leave the building with the aim to search for the evidence while conducting their inquiry.

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