From now on, a long road of stones, trips, elbows and the occasional knife awaits Luis Rubiales to defend himself from the string of crimes that he will have to face in the coming years. Corruption in business, unfair administration, money laundering, membership in a criminal organization, sexual assault and coercion. For now. The former president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) will check in his own judicial ordeal whether he is alone or has any support left. The next few months are crucial to know who is on his side and who is not.
In the judicial summary of Operation Brody they already glimpse confrontations with his former collaborators. In an intercepted conversation, one of his former confidants alerted a third person that the former federation president was asking him to do “illegalities.” That person is today being investigated for Rubiales' businesses. Will they drop it?
The idea, organization and contracts to bring the Super Cup to Saudi Arabia was the beginning of the judicial ordeal for Rubiales. Several enemies of the former president put on the table of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office suspicions of the fraudulent use of federation money in a suspicious operation, in which the player Gerard Piqué had been used as an intermediary.
Many more came out of that contract, which is what led the head of the Investigative Court number 4 of Majadahonda (Madrid) to pull the thread and order records of several senior officials of the RFEF as well as businessmen, including Rubiales himself. The instructor wants to know the real relationship between the Saudi company Sela and Piqué's Kosmos Football, as well as the destination of the money paid and whether there could have been bribe payments as compensation. The judge maintains in a resolution, to which La Vanguardia has had access, that Piqué's "authentic role" in this plot still remains to be found out.
The bulk of the investigation carried out by the agents of the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard has as its backbone the construction company Gruconsa, which would have provided numerous services to the RFEF during the Rubiales era. The owners of this company would be related to Javier Martín, a close friend of the former federation president known as Nene. The trail of the alleged defrauded money cannot be understood without the role played by another company acquired by Nene's wife: Dismatec Sport, where benefits began to arrive from the construction company "linked to the works carried out" for the RFEF. Investigators have confirmed that during Rubiales' years at the head of the Federation he invoiced almost four million euros, while Dismatec Sport received 530,000 euros from the construction company. As the judge says, the relationship between the RFE, Gruconsa and Dismatec cannot be understood without the figure of Rubiales.
The RFEF hired the construction company to carry out the renovation of the La Cartuja stadium in Seville for the 2021 Euro Cup. When the Civil Guard exploded the operation, they arrested Pedro González Segura – one of Rubiales' closest collaborators – but also to his brother Ángel, who was a director of Gruconsa. In one of the intercepted conversations, the latter relates that one of his bosses reproaches him that the Rubiales network had monopolized most of the benefits. “El Nene has been getting paid like hell thanks to my back,” he admits in a conversation recorded in the summary. These goings-on have dragged in Pedro Rocha, a candidate to replace Rubiales, whom the judge charged last Friday.
When Rubiales was forced to resign, he would have used those friends and collaborators who he had seen increase his portfolio with him in the RFEF to take over part of his businesses. Thus, he kept 50% of the shares in another company linked to Nene, GRX, and has gotten involved in another company owned by his friend, Explotaciones hoteleras nazaríes. In the post-RFEF era, they opened businesses in the Dominican Republic, where they both spent time, and even rented a villa for about 1,000 euros a night.
According to investigators, Nene would be involving Rubiales in hotel and real estate investments in the Caribbean country. Nene, a childhood friend of Rubiales, made it clear what his commitment to Rubiales was once he left the RFEF. This is what he told another partner of his: “In my 50% I will say who comes in because I have Luis, the president, and he is living there (Dominicana) and I have to get him in.”
From the judicial summary it is clear how Rubiales would have used the federation to set up his own farm, favoring friends and using the money as he pleased. One of the pieces that is being investigated is how, with money from the RFEF, he paid private detectives to spy on his enemies, including the president of La Liga. For this he would have used one of the people he trusted, Tomás González Cueto, who was elected commissioner of external control of the federation; that is, who controlled the contracts. And in turn, his law firm, GC Legal, was hired by the federation to bring civil lawsuits against Rubiales, as well as to contract other efforts, such as espionage.
“Cueto would be subcontracting extraordinary legal services for the RFEF through his law firm with total discretion and to the detriment of the federative entity,” the Civil Guard states in one of its reports. The agents are also investigating their relationship after Rubiales' departure. It was Cueto who acknowledged in a call to a third party that “Luis -Rubiales- told me to do something that was illegal and I told him that I couldn't do it to him.” According to the case, their relationship could have broken down in recent months.
While this instruction, which fully affects him, has only just begun, the National Court has already closed the investigation into the non-consensual kiss and the alleged subsequent coercion of the women's national team player Jennifer Hermoso.
For the most high-profile case, which generated an enormous debate in society last summer, the Prosecutor's Office has requested two and a half years in prison for the former president for sexual assault and coercion. A kiss, “surprising and without consent” that gave the finishing touch to the 'untouchable' of football.
