Rubiales and the "friendly clubs" of futsal

On Friday 18 September 2020 at 11:30 in the Court of First Instance of Majadahonda Luis Rubiales is facing his first complaint admitted for processing since he became President of the RFEF. The second complaint has been presented by the Fuenlabrada and has also been admitted by the judge. Something happens in Las Rozas when the courts decide to intervene.  

The complaint faced by Luis Manuel Rubiales Béjar, as President of the RFEF when the facts are reported; Andreu Camps, General Secretary; Fernando González, Instructing Judge; and José Luis Carretero, Single Competition Judge, is based on the crimes of coercion and prevarication. That is to say, criminal and civil actions are requested by a route that the judiciary understands as very serious.   

Atalayar has had access to the 31 pages of the complaint and the documentary evidence presented on 25 February 2020 in the Court of Majadahonda by Javier Lozano, president of the LNFS. Regardless of the density of legal terms and the grounds for the accusations, the account of the facts denounced has nothing to envy the state sewers that put, remove and bury professionally certain politicians when the occasion demands it.  

It all starts when the LNFS signs an agreement to sell television rights with LaLiga (Javier Tebas) and Mediapro (Jaume Roures). Everyone knows the professional hatred between Thebes and Rubiales that they do not hide from the media. An "institutional maneuver" by the RFEF "to provoke the breaking of the contract" begins. The lawsuit goes even further when it accuses the public authorities of wanting "Javier Lozano to leave the presidency and be replaced by an RFEF employee who would fulfil Rubiales' mandate and thus immediately terminate the contract".

But the vaudeville of indoor football has a special chapter in the summer of 2019. According to the complaint, at the Only You Hotel in Madrid, representatives of four LNFS clubs - Jaén, Peñíscola, Inter Movistar and Burela - met with Luis Rubiales, "coincidentally the same clubs that have contributed to Javier Lozano's strategy of lynching and permanent discrediting, orchestrated by the RFEF". The document reveals that "at that meeting, without any shame or reservation, not only was the roadmap to be followed by Rubiales expressed to the four clubs, but they were also promised a reward with potential positions in the RFEF or the LNFS". Positions that they already hold in the complicated system with which they want to manage indoor football where there is a board of directors and an executive committee and that has as a novelty the presence of Barça for its better institutional relations with the RFEF before LaLiga. Even the illustrious Garcia Plata has a position for managing his well-subsidized unión.

But television was and is Rubiales' obsession. The president who got approval to take a commission of 0.6% of the new contracts signed also wanted to cash in on an indoor football that the LNFS had made profitable over the years. He brought the clubs together in Las Rozas and told them, according to the judge in the lawsuit, that "in the case of the transfer of the rights to RFEF, the latter would be able to provide them with economic returns never lower than 'one and a half or two million euros', without of course explaining or justifying the origin of this amount". Rubiales had to match Thebes' offer, even if the federation's coffers had cobwebs. Camps, the RFEF's senior plumber, did the dirty work and tried to "prevent the broadcasting of the matches by Gol TV" to get them to later "request authorization to approve the broadcasting of the matches". A masterpiece of professional plumbing... if only he had succeeded.  

The complaint explains in detail to the judge the grammatical traps in which the RFEF put pressure on the LNFS to expropriate their management of futsal. But document 16 provides two indecent pieces of documentary evidence. "Luis Rubiales' speech on the day of the Futsal Gala held in La Ciudad del Fútbol de las Rozas in December 2019, where the defendant effusively expresses his gratitude to his "friend clubs", that is, those in the Atocha hotel that warm up seats in the committees and "help in the plotted strategy". The reader should not forget that the most important club of the rebels in terms of budget and social mass is José María García's Inter Movistar, which, as a good and powerful journalist, never stops working. 

The paper goes on to reveal the web of judges that cover the federal ranting. Judges who were "close friends" of Camps and who initiated proceedings quickly without respecting the time limits for defence, as would happen in the Segovia Futsal case. Inter, Jaén, Peñíscola and Burela continued with their idea of overthrowing Lozano in the civil or criminal field and created the "dossier on irregularities in the participation of Segovia Futsal in the first division of the LNFS in the 2018/2019 season". An administrative labyrinth in which judges dismiss appeals, do not notify complaints and do not admit evidence of defence. The clubs conspire to try and blame Lozano for not reporting the complaints about the non-payment of the players of the Segovia club at the time. The matter is so bland that a few days later the directors of the now defunct club appear in the press to dissociate themselves from these accusations and the case falls apart.  

He ends the most juicy part of the lawsuit by stating that since the RFEF was unable to "overthrow Javier Lozano by dint of disguising himself as legal and democratic," Camps removed the sewers in order to "set in motion the federal files" and obtain "the civil death of Lozano in his capacity as president of the LNFS" and disqualify him from federal functions. CAS was amazed by this intrigue, as was the CSD. It suspended the administrative proceedings against Lozano until someone decides on the RFEF's capacity to impose sanctions. Which is not as much as they think. 

This tells a story of alleged coercion and prevarication in the RFEF against futsal. Another example of interventionism is that LaLiga still cannot market football on TV without an audience on Fridays and Mondays at the whim of Rubiales. The endless story of a president who wants to reign over football in Spain. Who tries to sanction from his throne all those who do not agree with his corruption. A president above all else and above everyone.