The Consell Esportiu del Barcelonès Nord (Cebnord), a private body funded by public money and promoting school sports in Badalona, Santa Coloma, and Sant Adrià, has opened disciplinary proceedings and dismissed its former top operational manager: former Olympic athlete Carles Sala. After conducting an audit due to the red numbers of recent years, the Consell accuses Sala of “negligent,” “fraudulent,” and “absolutely unacceptable” actions that caused a loss of 150,000 euros, according to documents accessed by EL PAÍS, leaving the entity in a “critical” financial situation.
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Sala, who specialized in the 110-meter hurdles and participated in five consecutive Olympics, from Moscow ’80 to Atlanta ’96, allegedly took advantage of his position as technical secretary — a kind of manager — to pocket thousands of euros at the expense of the organization, according to the burofax sent to the athlete this August. The Consell dismissed him for disciplinary reasons and, according to sources consulted, is considering taking criminal action due to the seriousness of the facts.
Asked by this newspaper, Sala does not comment on the specific accusations because the matter is “in the hands of lawyers,” but he states that he is involved in a labor dispute with the Consell. The athlete claims he is owed six months’ salary, as well as the full repayment of a personal loan that, he says, he took out to fund sports activities. Sala also points out that the board of directors was “up to date” on the entity’s financial figures.
The Consell’s document lists half a dozen alleged irregularities. For example, the “fraudulent” hiring in 2023 of his wife as an administrative employee without informing the board of directors: the woman never actually conducted the training sessions for which she was hired. After investigations began by the deputy mayor of Sant Adrià, Hugo Ferrer, who took over the presidency of the body last January, Sala “proceeded to deregister” his wife to “avoid being discovered,” the document adds. By then, the entity had already paid her 44,631 euros in salary.
44% Salary Increase
Sala, 66 years old, used a Cebnord credit card, according to the complaint, for “personal expenses unrelated to the entity’s activities” that were neither “authorized nor justified.” There are, for example, payments at restaurants on weekends, outside working hours, in shopping centers, and in venues in the municipality where he lives, totaling 2,394 euros. The athlete also purchased, according to the audit, items for his personal enjoyment — a foam heater for the Nespresso coffee machine, a motorcycle jacket, diving fins, or an iPhone 13 — for 4,112 euros. He also “overstepped,” according to the burofax, improperly spending another 7,347 euros on meal vouchers.
Between 2020 and 2025, Sala also approved for himself a salary increase of almost 44%, well above the CPI and the raises applied to the rest of the staff, which the document describes as an “abuse of the trust placed by the entity.”
Almost half of the damage caused to Cebnord stems from Sala’s alleged “negligence” in managing subsidies. In 2024, he did not send the documentation required by the Badalona City Council, and the entity lost the expected aid of 35,000 euros; the following year, he did not even apply for it, causing another 35,000 euros to vanish. The Consell also accuses Sala of forging documents and, in particular, of using the signatures of two presidents (Francisco Burgos and his successor, Hugo Ferrer) to give a veneer of legality to the hiring of his wife.
Sala’s maneuvers were not detected at the time, according to the document, by the Consell’s board of directors, mostly made up of public officials from the three municipalities. “It is very difficult for government members to become aware of this fact,” the burofax justifies regarding the hiring of the wife. Regarding the expenses, it adds that they were “blurred among many others” and that the administrative staff “did not supervise, only accounted.”
Maintaining Sports Activity
Suspicions arose when investigating the poor financial performance of the entity. According to data published on its website, in the 2023-2024 fiscal year, the Consell earned nearly 400,000 euros (more than half in subsidies) but spent 55,000 euros more. The extent of the hole became evident in May when the new president was able to access the current account data, the burofax adds. Sources consulted explain that, for many years, Sala “held all the power” in Cebnord. The athlete joined the body after retiring in 2001, after more than two decades at the elite level of sport and after failing to qualify for the Sydney Games. As technical secretary, he was the top operational manager and was responsible, among other things, for controlling financial execution.
The embezzlement has caused a “cash crisis” that has put the entity in jeopardy. There have been delays in salary payments, and those responsible are now working to “look for money under every stone.” Sources from the Consell explain that “jobs are guaranteed” and that the scheduled “school and lleure leagues” will also start normally. The goal is to maintain an “essential activity”: the Consell organizes school sports and sports activities for children and youth in three cities in the metropolitan area with nearly 400,000 inhabitants.
