Juan Rubiales, the president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation’s (RFEF) uncle and former chief of staff, has denounced the improper payment of private parties with government funds to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor. El Mundo has obtained a copy of the voluntary statement Luis Rubiales gave to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office on May 30. In it, he claims to have attended a party “in the beginning of 2020 in a private home in Salobrea,” a village in the province of Granada.
According to his statement, the formal reason for the assignment was “a few days of work, but it was not such.” Juan Rubiales testified in front of the Public Ministry that the residence was rented “primarily for the enjoyment of him and his most direct team, paying the expenditures using corporate cards of the RFEF itself.” To this party, “a group of eight or ten young females were invited by the former soccer star and friend of President Nen,” Juan Rubiales explained.
Also, on August 18, 2020, Juan Rubiales’s nephew reportedly told him that he needed to “create a formula so that money would reach his father.” Rubiales had just been fired from his post in the federal institution. He informed the Prosecutor that he had initially responded by offering assistance “out of his pocket.” On the other hand, he said, “my nephew yelled out that it’s not about this, but that we have to find something for the money to flow out of the RFEF.” The witness stated that after he categorically rejected the proposal, his nephew told him to “get out of there” and that he “didn’t want to see him again.”
In his appearance on Anticorruption, he also discussed an incident from 2019 that he detailed. Juan Rubiales stated that his nephew made the decision “to go against David Aganzo, president of the AFE (Association of Spanish Soccer Players), for which he did not He hesitates to hire a detective agency to follow up and find out who he meets, who he talks to, who supports him…” in August of that year. In addition, he stated, “the business that carries out the surveillance is paid by a corporation that belongs to the lawyer Raman Caravaca.” I should note that the costs of these services were ultimately invoiced to the RFEF.
In an official letter, the Football Federation denied the former chief of staff’s allegations, writing, “Neither on that date nor on any other was a single euro committed to topics that are not particular to the federative activity.”
Facilitate the President’s Workload
In his testimony, the deponent stated, “I have been a journalist for virtually my whole life, and in the last 25 years at Antena 3 Television in the area of political information.” He was Chief of Staff of the RFEF “from June 2018 to August 2020, when he was sacked,” after being appointed to the role by his nephew. Noting that “he had previously been the campaign director to access the Presidency of the AFE of Luis Rubiales in 2010, who later separated professionally and that it was in 2017 when he was called to direct the campaign for the presidency of the RFEF,” he said that he had been the RFEF’s campaign director since 2010.
In his Anticorruption interview, he elaborated that his job entailed “making life easy for the president,” which entailed planning and arranging the president’s travel, schedule, institutional ties, and assembly.
The Public Ministry is currently investigating the alleged irregularities during the mandate of Luis Rubiales at the head of the RFEF after revealing El Confidencial internal documentation of the institution that accredited, among other issues, the payment of millionaire commissions to the FC Barcelona footballer Gerard Piqu for the organization of the Spanish Super Cup in Saudi Arabia or the recording of conversations with senior officials of the Government of Pedro Sánchez.
