The president of the FEF, Luis Rubiales. /
The leader assures that it is “false” that he received 3,100 euros per month without being entitled to them because he did not have his residence established outside of Madrid
The Spanish Football Federation would have paid Luis Rubiales for a luxury home in Madrid without meeting the conditions, according to ‘El Confidencial’. In these leaks, which according to Rubiales insists come from the ‘hacking’ of his mobile phone, there are a series of messages between the general secretary, Andreu Camps, and the FEF lawyer, Tomás González Cueto, in which they admit that “it could be a problem» the payment of that house.
The FEF paid its president for months the rent of a luxury home in the Plaza de España. According to the information, which Rubiales considers one more lie, these payments were made with the agency’s own funds and not the president’s. The contract was signed by Andreu Camps, who a little later would end up stating in an email that it could be a “problem”.
The lease was signed on January 20, 2020. According to said contract, Rubiales was going to “regularly reside in the house.” It was an apartment of 125.68 square meters in the Torre de Madrid. The agreement established a minimum rent of six months, extendable until January 2025. The rent of said house amounted to 3,100 euros per month, but this figure was paid by the FEF. As reflected in the contract to which that medium has had access, Camps undertook to pay said rent on behalf of the Federation in the first seven days of each month.
The problem is in said help. The Federation then allowed its president to receive financial aid for housing, but it was essential that he had his domicile or residence established outside of Madrid. The spirit of this rule was to assume the costs of a president from outside Madrid and who did not have a house in the capital, and thus be able to exercise the functions of the position.
Camps admitted that this situation could be a problem and in conversations with the lawyer Tomás González Cueto he looked for a remedy to try to overcome the alleged legal problems: «I have introduced an important change in the wording on the subject of housing. The previous wording said that you would be provided [al presidente] a home when he had his habitual residence outside of Madrid. With the literal tenor of the phrase, in order to provide a home, the habitual residence must be outside Madrid (it means that someone usually lives outside and comes ‘occasionally’ here). If the fiscal domicile is transferred to Madrid and for this you also register in Madrid… I think that here we could have a problem ». And he added: “This is why I have changed the meaning of the phrase and please tell me that with this new phrase we can save the fact that the president is registered in Madrid.” The lawyer confirmed that the best thing was to change the phrase and the concept would become one more complement on the Rubiales payroll.
“Garbage on top”
Moments later, Cueto responded to the email arguing that it was better to transform the amount for renting the apartment into an “equivalent housing aid paid in 2020”, as if the concept swelled the complements on the Rubiales payroll. The change in the wording of the remuneration regulation took weeks to approve. Until that moment, the president enjoyed funds to which he was supposedly not entitled. In 2021, Rubiales already acquired a luxury penthouse in Ferraz valued at 1.9 million euros, abandoning the apartment on the 29th floor of Torre de Aria.
“This is false. [el pago del piso] it is not approved by statutes, it is approved at each assembly, it is false… it is false that we have charged commissions, everything you are saying is false, you are throwing a lot of garbage at me, I suppose your objective will be to benefit someone, I don’t know who… I’m an honest man,” said Rubiales in his various television appearances this Thursday.
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.