The Spanish Football Federation threatened by scandals

Rocked by several ethical and anti-sporting scandals, the Spanish FA has seen its image seriously damaged, weighing on its bid to host the 2030 World Cup.

While the tripartite candidacy of Morocco, Portugal and Spain for the organization of the 2030 World Cup is the first of its kind to take place on two continents, while being very close logistically, the great soccer crowd that promises to be exceptional may suffer scandalous strains from the Spanish football association (RFEF).

On Monday, the president of the Superior Sports Council, José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes, tried not to inflame the situation by promising that Spain’s candidacy would be “not at all” in danger.

He added that the federation was in talks with FIFA to resolve the issue and “harmonize the decisions that need to be made” regarding the Rubiales case. “We want things to be done according to the rules, in cooperation with FIFA, to provide constructive solutions to the problems,” he told El Español.

According to Marca, Spanish prosecutors asked for a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence for the former president of the Spanish Football Federation, Luis Rubiales, who had kissed player Jenni Hermoso without consent during Spain’s victory in the 2023 Women’s World Cup.

The former president of the Spanish federation was forced to resign following this scandal before being sentenced to suspension from all football-related functions for three years.

The prosecution also asked the high court for a sentence of one and a half years in prison against former coach Jorge Vilda, former marketing director Ruben Rivera and that of the men’s team Albert Luque.

Again this week, the RFEF announced it had sacked executives involved in a corruption investigation, the day after searches carried out at its headquarters in Madrid. Disciplinary proceedings were opened against the director of legal services, Pedro Gonzalez Segura, and the director of human resources, Jose Javier Jimenez, who were arrested on Wednesday, March 21.

The case concerns allegations of money laundering involving the former president of the association as well as the former FC Barcelona defender Gerard Piqué, through the company Kosmos which allegedly acted as an intermediary to conclude an agreement and both would have received commissions.

This comes into the case of the Super Cup, where the semi-finals and final have been hosted since 2020 in Saudi Arabia for €40 million per year. The investigation into the affair began two years later after audio recordings between Rubiales and Piqué discussing multimillion-euro commissions were made public.