April 21 – The storm around leaked phone tapes of Spanish FA president Luis Rubiales is still raging. Rubiales has hit back at what he calls “mischievous and dishonest” accusations from Spanish media of alleged wrongdoing over the deal to relocate the Spanish Super Cup to Saudi Arabia.
On Monday, website El Confidencial published leaked audio recordings from 2019 that revealed details about a contract negotiated by Rubiales and Barcelona defender Gerard Pique.
According to El Confidencial, the contract included Pique’s sports agency Kosmos receiving €4 million for each of the six tournaments to be played in Saudi Arabia from 2020.
The revelations claimed Kosmos acted as intermediary in the agreement between the Spanish FA and Sela, a public Saudi Arabian sports marketing company.
But Rubiales vehemently denied there was any conflict of interest.
“I am outraged by all the falsehoods that were published and extremely angry for having information illegally stolen from my mobile,” Rubiales told a news conference.
He said that the Spanish FA (RFEF) never had a commercial agreement with Pique and that the commission was fully paid by the Saudis.
“We have no financial rapport with Pique or Kosmos. I am upset that they [media] are prioritising the false news that I’m hearing rather than the robbery of private information taken from my phone.
“I’ve been at the helm of the RFEF for four years. I haven’t stopped being attacked since I decided to run for president. There is a campaign to discredit me. If they can do this, I cannot guarantee that one day they will put a bag of cocaine in the boot of my car. I don’t deserve this, neither does my family.”
Rubiales said the agreement signed with Saudi Arabia was done in a “transparent, honourable, legal” way and is “beneficial” for Spanish football.
“This is a great and exemplary agreement, that some people want to stain,” he said. “We have worked well; we have acted in an honourable manner.
“The Italian FA took their Super Cup [final] overseas and got €7 million and we have got €40 million per tournament. I can assure you that of the €40 million, half of this amount will go to lowly teams that need it to survive.”
The rest will go to the clubs that participate in the tournament though the Spanish FA has long been under attack for taking the competition to a country that has been criticised for its human rights record.
But Rubiales again defended the decision.
“Our ethics committee encouraged us to go and sign with Saudi Arabia because we guaranteed that the women’s league would be created, that women could freely go to the stadiums and not be isolated. There are hundreds of business projects with Spanish companies in Saudi Arabia. Why only the football can’t?”
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