Barcelona reportedly fell victim to a scam when completing the signing of Robert Lewandowski after allegedly being duped into paying an individual posing as his agent.
The Catalan giants signed Lewandowski for £42.5million in 2022 from Bayern Munich.
Barcelona had pursued the forward that summer after he expressed a desire to leave Bayern following nine seasons.
The deal represented a coup despite the club’s financial problems, with Lewandowski having netted 50 goals from 46 matches the previous season.
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.
Barcelona signed Robert Lewandowski, pictured, from Bayern Munich in the summer of 2022
The Catalan giants paid £42.5million to secure the services of the Polish superstar forward
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.
Barcelona reportedly made a payment after receiving an email from someone posing as the star’s agent, before the funds were blocked and later returned by the Bank of Cyprus
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.
Despite Barcelona denying internal club processes for approving transfers had been violated, the case has raised further scrutiny over the club finances during the time period.
In 2022, the Catalan giants debt was reported to have soared to £1.14billion.
This led to the club activating a series of ‘economic levers’ to raise funds to sign the likes of Lewandowski.
