Wednesday, October 9, 2024, 1:32 p.m.
Justice has issued an international arrest warrant against former American basketball player Marcus Slaughter for allegedly falsifying his passport to play without restrictions for Real Madrid, as RAC1 announced this Wednesday. The former American center won with the white team the 2015 League and Cup titles claimed by Barcelona. The Barça club, as an injured party, appeared as a private prosecutor to have the League and Cup from nine years ago withdrawn from Real Madrid and Barça be proclaimed champion.
It is being investigated whether Slaughter paid to obtain a falsified passport from Equatorial Guinea to play as a community player, as well as the American Andy Panko, a former Fuenlabrada player and also accused in the case opened in a Madrid court. Barça was the club that requested that arrest warrants be issued to locate Slaughter and Panko and notify them that they must sit in the dock in the case of false passports.
The arrest warrants for both former players were already issued on July 25, 2023, at the request of Barcelona, but Slaughter was not located by the justice system. Just two days later, the former Madrid player was cheering on Real Madrid football in Houston during the team’s recent American tour led by Carlo Ancelotti. In the case of Panko, the former Fuenlabrada forward, among other teams, was arrested in August in Madrid and then brought to justice.
The ‘Slaughter case’ broke out in 2015, when the Spanish Basketball Federation (FEB) and the Higher Sports Council (CSD) detected irregularities in the passport of the then Real Madrid player to become a citizen of Equatorial Guinea. This was common practice under the Cotonou agreement, which allows players from African, Caribbean and Pacific countries affiliated with a trade agreement with the EU to be considered as community players.
For 35,000 euros
Slaughter and Panko admitted to having paid 35,000 euros in cash each to Ricard Nguema, a former Real Madrid youth player with contacts with the government of Equatorial Guinea, for their passports. Slaughter, whose Equatoguinean passport, with the same number as Panko’s, had two pages missing, was able to play as a community player, while those who occupied the non-EU places in Real Madrid were the Mexican Gustavo Ayón and the Argentine Facundo Campazzo.
Barcelona continues without the sentence to officially claim, in the event of a conviction, the withdrawal of the League and the Cup that Real Madrid won in 2015 due to Slaughter’s improper alignment. The culé club, which was runner-up in both competitions, has already requested it before the sole judge of the ACB, who filed the case pending what the court decides. The Prosecutor’s Office requests 16 months in prison for those accused of falsifying documents, while the rest of the accusations, including the CSD, the ACB, Barça and the Association of Spanish Basketball Players, request sentences of two and a half years in prison for those involved.
