The head of the Court of First Instance and Instruction Number 4 of Majadahonda has agreed that the former president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) Luis Rubiales appear before the courts once a month and report and request permission to make any trip abroad.
Judge Delia Rodrigo has adopted this decision after questioning Rubiales as an investigator. for his management as president of the Federation between 2018 and 2023, with the focus on the transfer of the Super Cup to Saudi Arabia and the alleged diversion of funds due to irregularities associated with contracts.
According to the same sources, The Prosecutor’s Office had requested biweekly appearances and Rubiales’s defense – led by the lawyer José Vicente Gómez Tejedor – has opposed such a request. The judge, finally, has agreed that the appearances will have to be monthly and that she must also attend as many times as she summons.
Likewise, the head of the court has established that Rubiales will have to inform and request permission to travel abroad. Additionally, she must notify how long she will be away and at what address she will stay.
The judge adopted these precautionary measures after Rubiales answered her questions, those of the prosecutor and those of her lawyer for more than four hours – with three breaks included.
At that time, has denied the irregularities attributed to him by the Prosecutor’s Office in the procedure being followed against him for alleged crimes of corruption in business and unfair administration, according to the sources consulted.
In relation to the contract to bring the football Super Cup to Saudi Arabia, he has assured that the RFEF did not go to Kosmos, but rather it was the company of former footballer Gerard Piqué who contacted them to notify them that SELA – the Saudi state company – I wanted to invest in football. However, he has specified that what the company intended was to obtain the lowest possible agreement, while in the Federation they sought to close the highest price.
In this sense, although he has acknowledged that the former FC Barcelona player called him to notify him of this business possibility, he has specified that he attended to him as he would to any person who calls him with this type of offer.
Thus, he insists that the Federation did not look for Kosmos and that it did not ally with this company to look for SELA, but that the Saudi company contacted them. On this point, he also recalled that the RFEF also received proposals from China, Russia and India and that in those cases they had “intermediaries.”
As he said, it is “usual” in the world of football that there is an intermediation. He has stressed that everything was “clean” and that the contract was drawn up by the external commissioner of the Federation. He was referring to Tomás González Cueto, also investigated in the case.
According to sources present during the interrogation, he has defended that the money that the RFEF obtained with the contract to bring the Super Cup to Saudi Arabia “he saved football.” And, in his opinion, this sport would have died in the pandemic if it had not been signed.