“Every weekend more than 30,000 matches are played, with an extraordinary work of territorials. It is the best federation in the world. Football is working at the level of the best in the world. Football needs tranquility. Let football choose its representatives”. Alejandro Blanco, president of the Spanish Olympic Committee, was emphatic on Tuesday in his support for the current RFEF board and made it clear that the government should distance itself from it. Once again, politics wants to interfere in sport, in this case in Spain. This is the war that the government of Pedro Sánchez -with the CSD (Consejo Superior de Deportes) and Vicente del Bosque as intermediaries-, is currently maintaining with the president Pedro Rocha and his current board.

These days, the TAD (Court of Arbitration for Sport) decides whether to disqualify Pedro Rocha, something that neither Blanco nor federated football (who ratified him in the recent elections), nor LaLiga -and its president, Javier Tebas– nor Liga F (women’s professional league) like. Tebas, an expert sports lawyer, recently said “I am astonished” if he is disqualified because legally and objectively he sees no reason to do so. Spanish football wants to leave things as they are, which is not going badly at all, and leave without further tarnishing its leading role as the main organizer of the 2030 World Cup.

Javier Tebas and Pedro Rocha on June. (Guillermo Martinez/Shutterstock)

Why is Rocha being persecuted? Actually, neither football nor the Federation itself know the reasons because since Rocha took the controls of the RFEF the actions required by the previous president of the CSD, Victor Francos, were carried out. The only clue they have are some words of April of José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes, current president of the Superior Sports Council: “It is unthinkable that the representative of Spanish football could be a person investigated in a criminal case and under suspicion of the Administrative Court of Sport”. In this sense, the reasons of the TAD (which Javier Tebas does not understand) to disqualify Rocha are:

1. A dismissal (that of Andreu Camps, agreed with the previous Secretary of State).
2. A termination of a contract (of the lawyer of Tomás González Cueto’s office, the same day he was arrested in an investigation for belonging to a criminal organization involved in the looting of the RFEF).
3. The appearance of the RFEF as a private prosecutor in the proceedings for which the former president of the RFEF, lawyers from Cueto’s law firm and the RFEF were arrested.

Llevo más de 35 años ejerciendo como abogado, y gran parte de este tiempo me he especializado en el derecho deportivo. He leído con atención la propuesta de inhabilitación de Pedro Rocha por parte de la instructora y no salgo de mi asombro. Se proponen 2 años de inhabilitación…

— Javier Tebas Medrano (@Tebasjavier) June 21, 2024

THE ‘POLITICIAN’ VICENTE DEL BOSQUE

In this way, Spanish sports do not understand or explain the reasons for this politicization and speak of “cacicada”. So much so, that Pedro Sanchez himself was the one who asked for help to the legendary coach Vicente del Bosque, giving him a new position of supposedly an intermediary between the Government and national football, something that football itself does not understand and that some consider a ‘betrayal’ of sport in the face of politics. They respect his figure, but do not share the fact that he has allowed himself to be duped by politics, knowing that his figure will be purely mediatic and that he is absolutely useless. The best example of how the Government exploits Vicente del Bosque in the media is that TVE bought the rights to the current European Championship – in which Spain will play the final this Sunday – and instead of interviewing directors or members of the RFEF during the matches, they interview Del Bosque, a person outside the RFEF and the day-to-day life of the National Team. The typical statement of a manager has been replaced by a statement of someone from the Government.

The executive arm of the Government is the CSD, a body of the General State Administration whose functions are the promotion, planning and coordination of sports policy in Spain. To better understand the involvement of the current government with sport, it should be noted that in the last 6 years five different presidents of the CSD have passed, something that does not provide balance, long-term work, security or credibility. There is a conception in sport that the person ‘sent’ to the CSD is because ‘it has been his or her turn’, not because of passion, knowledge and involvement in a national sports project.

El actual presidente de la RFEF, Pedro Rocha. (Jose Breton/NurPhoto/Shutterstock)

These people who circulate in an itinerant way through the CSD, the presidents, are the ones who supervise and support the CAS as part of their responsibilities and its members are also appointed by the president of the CSD, and the tribunal depends on the CSD for its infrastructure and resources, although the CAS should maintain independence in its decisions…. However, there are doubts about this in Spanish football.

MARÍA ÁNGELES GARCÍA CHAVES, PRESIDENT?

In all this, in the decision to be taken by the TAD these days there is one more guest: the former external advisor of the RFEF, Tomás González Cueto -right hand of the former president Luis Rubiales-, who was removed by the Federation for Rocha (at the request of the former president of the CSD). And, as ‘Marca’ warned the previous week, “Cueto’s influence in the TAD’s sanctioning file against Pedro Rocha cannot be ruled out”. In the summary of the case under investigation it appears that Gonzalez Cueto tried to convince the director general of sports of the CSD, Fernando Molinero, so that the TAD would do him a favor. And the UCO (Central Operative Unit of the Police) also argues in its report that Gonzalez Cueto has a good relationship with several members of the TAD. A revenge that also seeks that no one digs into his past with the previous president, Rubiales.

With this soap opera, what will happen on these days with the CAS decision? Too much wear and tear on Spanish football to, in any case, not change the Board of Directors even if they are disqualified. In this case, the new Board will be chaired by María Ángeles García Chaves (current vice-president) and will have total freedom to carry out other elections (again…) and will not have to count with the burden of this process nor with the governmental threat of placing at the head of the RFEF people they trust. With or without Rocha, it seems that football will win the pulse of the government.