MADRID, 25 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The president of LaLiga, Javier Tebas, has denounced the “corruption” of some members of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), including its president Luis Rubiales, and has assured that “they cannot protect themselves under the RFEF logo personal defenses.
“If all this is corruption, it is corruption. Corruption is not only an economic issue, it is also an issue of abuse of power, sending an employee to record someone is corruption. There is corruption in the top leaders of the RFEF, not in the institution. I am the biggest defender of the RFEF as an institution”, he declared after the National Congress of Peñas organized by Aficiones Unidas in Almería.
This Friday, the RFEF accused Tebas of “damaging and discrediting football” and asked him for respect and institutional responsibility, in addition to criticizing his “unacceptable behavior” that widened the “war” with the body led by Luis Rubiales and the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE).
In addition, Tebas urged the leaders to take out “the entire tape” in which, according to what they stated, the LaLiga chief executive was supposedly trying to buy the will of a federative employee. “They don’t take it out because they know it didn’t happen as they say. Personal defenses cannot be protected under the RFEF logo, I never do it with LaLiga. The RFEF is above its leaders, it is an institution that I respect a lot Another thing is that their leaders do not have respect for their clubs and their players,” he said.
“People misunderstand respect. You have to know if recording ministers or secretaries of state is respect or not, if saving ‘whatsapps’ of the Prime Minister is respect or not, if recording the president of LaLiga through his deputy secretary In general, it is respect or not, whether to put a detective on the president of the footballers’ union because I don’t like it is respect or not, if not giving explanations to a court of 260 million euros that LaLiga has put in is respect or not, whether to travel to New York saying that you have meetings to be with his girlfriend is respect or not, if making a Super Cup, dividing the ‘sticks’ with ‘Geri’ and hiding a commission of four million is respect or not…”, he continued.
About his president Luis Rubiales must resign, Tebas is clear. “Yes, without a doubt,” he said forcefully. “They have been doing irreparable damage to football for practically two months,” he added.
“ALMERIA IS NOT A CLUB-STATE”
In another order of things, he assessed the situation of UD Almería, a new club in LaLiga Santander and owned by Sheikh Turki Al-Sheikh. “Normally, club-states don’t have limits on losses because they don’t give a damn about losing money. In that respect, Almería is not a club-state because it submits to the economic control of Spanish football and, therefore, cannot have losses and you have to have expenses according to your income,” he said.
Yes, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City are for him, something that he has already repeatedly denounced. “The TAS does not work as it should work, a radical change is needed, I have said it in UEFA meetings. They were clear facts, and both, due to formal defects, have been revoked. One of the problems we have in football European in general is that everything ends up in the TAS and the TAS is not working well”, he pointed out.
Finally, Tebas assured that the decision that there will be LaLiga SmartBank matches during the World Cup in Qatar was agreed upon by the clubs. “This was exposed in LaLiga SmartBank and there was only one vote against,” he concluded.