Barcelona reportedly fell victim to a scam during the signing of Polish striker, Robert Lewandowski.
The Spanish club were allegedly tricked into sending €1million (£830,000) to a fraudster, who pretended to be working with the agent of star striker Robert Lewandowski.
Barca signed Lewandowski from Bayern Munich in the summer of 2022 for an initial fee of €45m (£37m). The Polish striker has banged in 71 goals in 106 matches for Barcelona since then to prove his worth to the team.
Spanish outlet Cadena SER reported the club had received an email during the transfer, which was claimed to be from the forward’s agent Pini Zahavi.
The email is said to have instructed the club to pay a €1million (£830,000) agent’s commission, before later making demands for two separate transfers of €250,000 (£208,000).
The €1m payment had been requested to have been paid into the bank account of a lawyer instead of Zahavi, with the email providing details of the account.
Barcelona are said to have paid the fee into a Bank of Cyprus account.
The sum was reported to have been frozen with the payment considered suspicious due to the newly opened account.
Barcelona reportedly came under pressure with another email sent urging them to lobby the bank to unfreeze the payment or risk being reported to football’s governing body FIFA.
The bank account was ultimately closed after the bank contacted the club and the alleged scam had been exposed.
Officials from Barcelona acknowledged to Cadena SER they had been deceived and the funds had been recovered.
Zahavi revealed to the same publication that Barcelona had contacted him one month after the transfer to ask whether he had received the payment.
The agent told the club he was unaware of the lawyer and that the email had not been from him.
Barcelona contacted Zahavi again after it was confirmed the email and bank account were unconnected to him.