The former external lawyer of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) Tomás González Cuetoconsidered the former president’s legal right hand Luis Rubiales, defended until he was arrested by agents of the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard in at least 40 cases judicial proceedings to the federative body, as can be seen from a letter dated March 22 addressed to the magistrate investigating the Soule case at the National Court, Francisco de Jorgeand to which El Periódico de España has had access, from the same editorial group as this newspaper.
González Cueto was arrested on March 20 by agents of the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard. And 48 hours later, on March 22, he was placed at the disposal of the judge in the Super Cup case, Delia Rodrigo, who agreed to his release without bail. This lawyer refused to testify, claiming that he could not do so because as a legal representative of the RFEF had to maintain professional secrecy. That same March 22, after three in the afternoon, the RFEF informed him through a burofax that the Federation had dispensed with his services in all procedures.
The Federation, with Pedro Rocha as president of the management company, dismissed the then legal director, Pedro González Segura, who had also been arrested by the UCO. The head of the Court of First Instance and Instruction number 4 of Majadahonda (Madrid), Delia Rodrigo, who is investigating the Super Cup case, has ended up indicting Rocha himself.
In his witness statement, the former secretary general of the RFEF Andreu Camps pointed out that González Cueto’s income alone as an “external commissioner” of the Federation exceeded 200,000 euros per year.. His job was to represent the Federation and Rubiales himself in numerous lawsuits. As a result, his law firm was responsible for a “large volume of court proceedings.”
Ramon Caravaca
In the burofax addressed to González Cueto’s office, which also refers to his partner Ramón Caravaca Magariñosas well as the lawyers Paula Rodríguez González and Daniel Echevarría González, the Legal Department of the Spanish Football Federation explains that they “will assume professional direction” in all cases. And for this reason, they ask them to make “the documentation you have available to the RFEF regarding the aforementioned matters.”
Specifically, of the 40 cases, eight belong to the criminal jurisdiction, 19 to the contentious-administrative jurisdiction, and 13 to the civil and commercial jurisdiction. The first of the criminal cases is the Soule casewhich is investigating the National Court in relation to the alleged irregularities detected within the RFEF under the presidency of Angel Maria Villar. The second criminal case is the Operation Oikos, which is linked to alleged match-fixing.
The Federation is represented as a private prosecutor in this case, which is currently being investigated by the Court of First Instance and Instruction number 5 of Huesca. It was the RFEF who took the alleged match-fixing of a match between Huesca and Nástic de Tarragona to the Prosecutor’s Office after receiving a report from UEFA on May 29, 2018. Specifically, it was communicated an abnormal situation around the betting markets that indicated the possible manipulation of said meeting.
‘The Negreira Case’
The third of the criminal cases that the now defenestrated González Cueto was handling was the Negreira case in which the Court of Instruction number 1 of Barcelona investigates the payment since 2011 of 7 million euros by FC Barcelona to the then vice president of Technical Committee of Referees (CTA), José María Enríquez Negreira. This lawyer was also in charge of defending the federative body in the Haiti case, the only one in which the RFEF has been prosecuted as a legal entity. Specifically, she is accused of the crime of subsidy fraud to the Caribbean country.
The other four criminal jurisdiction procedures that depended on the external lawyer were the Vinicius case, which is being investigated by the Investigative Court number 10 of Valencia; the case of the Vinicius doll (Section 23 of the Provincial Court of Madrid); he Stephen Newman case (the Investigative Court number 8 of Majadahonda recently filed the owner’s complaint of the Dux Internacional club of Madrid. This decision pending appeal); and a case about “the theft of mobile phones” from Luis Rubiales (Instruction Court number 5 of Madrid).
In the rest of the jurisdictions, the RFEF maintains litigation in the Supreme Court, in the National Court and in the Provincial Court of Madrid. A court of the Madrid Court recently sentenced the Rubiales Federation to pay 12.3 million euros to Mediapro for exclude this company from a contract for the commercialization of the audiovisual rights of the Copa del Rey of the 19/20, 20/21 and 21/22 seasons. This decision was appealed by González Cueto’s office, which after his arrest has been removed from all cases.
2024-04-18 06:27:29
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