SabadellThe Catalan Football Federation (FCF) has been involved in fights and legal battles with managerial and executive positions during the presidency of Joan Soteras, an official who is under the magnifying glass of the Generalitat following the Rubiales case and also for the various cases reported recently in the ARA, like those of Paquita Linares and Raquel Elola. The list of labor disputes since 2018 is approaching twenty: 18. Four more witnesses then share their experience in the organization.
Withdrawal of attributions and dismissal for telecommuting
Albert Fernández is a computer scientist and in 2011 joined the FCF as head of the area. In 2018, with the arrival of Soteras in the presidency, a new position was created in the department and they appointed Raül Sus as director with two additional external advisors. It was a “surprising decision because the department was made up of four workers and three supervisors”, explains Fernández to the ARA. In addition, “external companies were also hired to carry out tasks that IT staff could perform without difficulty”.
In January 2021, José Miguel Calle, general director of the FCF, asked Fernández to enter the federative mail of José Domingo Valls, former director of legal services of the FCF. Albert knew that this was a crime if the person involved was not notified beforehand and he did not comply with the order. Calle did not take it well and on February 2, 2021, he told him in front of all his colleagues that “he had lost confidence in him” and withdrew his powers.
A few days later, Albert and his colleagues suffered a 15% pay cut due to the pandemic. That same day, an FCF meeting was held in which the increase in Calle’s salary was approved, which was to be paid 125,000 euros per year. Months after that upgradethe general manager notified Albert of the opening of two files: one for making purchases for the FCF without authorization and the other for repeated non-compliance with the working day, arguing that he had not attended for many Fridays in the office, despite the fact that Fernández had agreed in writing to telework from Lleida to compensate for the salary cut due to covid.
The situation generated was unsustainable and Albert took leave due to anxiety. The FCF decided to fire him on December 9, 2021 based on the resolution of the files. After a few months, the computer scientist reached an out-of-court settlement where the organization recognized all the facts reported by him.
When he was still working at the FCF, Albert was part of the good governance commission and compliance as a representative of computer workers since its launch in 2018. It was a key piece to start it up, but on February 20 Soteras instructed the general secretary, Oriol Camacho, to inform him that he had to leave it. At the same time, Calle warned the head of IT that Fernández was “playing with fire”, that he had to leave “to protect himself”. Finally, and reluctantly, Fernández submitted his resignation from the commission in order not to tighten the rope any further.
Other members of the commission experienced a similar situation and were pressured to resign or, directly, were dismissed. Their positions were filled by people related to the general manager. Compliance did not act in the face of the barrage of unfair dismissals or different internal complaints submitted by those dismissed themselves.
Fired for being seen at a Sant Joan party
For his part, Toni Vera is a communicator and had been working at the FCF for eight years. His last months at the US were quite complicated: “They entrusted me with very long, supervised and urgent tasks to make my life impossible”. This resulted in “a picture of anxiety and sleep disorder, pathologies that I had never suffered from”. He even went to the emergency room: “I was suffocating after a very strong nervous breakdown”. The doctor discharged him for anxiety and a fortnight later he was sent a letter of dismissal specifying that he had been “seen on the street during the St. John’s Eve”. In September 2022, he arrived at a extrajudicial agreement to collect compensation.
Vera notes that there is “a very high percentage of FCF workers who have suffered from mental health problems and from Health they were monitoring them specifically, because it is not usual for a company to have so many disorders”. He also explains that the FCF “has a pattern of mobbing that is very well defined: first, they demote you, then they file a case against you, and finally they fire you. Once the position becomes vacant, they place a relative or friend, who goes on to occupy positions of responsibility, bypassing all the workers who have been proving their worth for years.” And throws a question into the air: “How can it be that Calle admits to a judge that he has embezzled money of the FCF and then increase his salary?”
Pending case to spy on an email
Emili Gil joined the FCF in 2016 and integrated into the sports area. With Calle’s appointment, “interference and pressure” began to summon certain players and he noticed that he was “controlled and watched over who he spoke to on the phone”. When the competition resumed after the pandemic, Gil already smelled something: “I was the last to rejoin the working group, they isolated me and I lost decision-making power”. In March 2021, he was fired “for lack of productivity”. Emili has it on record that they tried to open a file against her: “But they didn’t succeed because my work was impeccable”. She complained that her termination was inappropriate and in the conciliation act, the FCF agreed to pay him the relevant compensation, but the dispute did not end there: months later, Gil discovered that his mail had been accessed without authorization and also reported the facts.The case is pending trial.
Public display of dismissals
Joan Anton Ruiz was FCF’s head of purchases since 2017. On January 29, 2021, he found two people waiting for him at the door. They handed him a letter explaining that he was being fired for a “continued decline in his work capacity, for breaching contractual good faith and for abuse of trust in his work”. I had not previously received any alerts. It also said that “the FCF, in accordance with article 56 of the current Workers’ Statute, recognizes the inappropriateness of the dismissal and, given its seniority, it will be paid the compensation that corresponds to the current regulations”.
What affected Joan Anton the most was “the public humiliation he suffered at the 2021 extraordinary assembly, where he was exposed publicly in front of all club presidents, leaving him in a very vulnerable situation: ” I was a professional alien to football and that closed all the doors to my rejoining the world of senior management. At work, they have killed me and made me not raise my head”. At that assembly, the names and photographs of several workers who had been dismissed were published. Also those of Albert Fernández and Emili Gil.
Joan Anton Ruiz also has an open court process because he reported that they entered his computer without his consent and accessed documents and personal data.
2023-09-24 07:00:15
#portrait #work #nightmare #FCF #Soteras
