Tension between Risto Mejide and Luis Rubiales over the Qatar controversy: “If you don’t let me talk…”

The president of the Spanish Football Federation sat down this Tuesday in Risto Mejide’s chester to talk about all the controversies that surrounded the World Cup in Qatar: the dismissal of Luis Enrique, his friendship with Piqué and the position of the National Team against the violation of human rights in the host country of the championship: “We cannot fix the world”.

Rubiales has justified himself by assuring that “there is a death penalty in more countries”, that “things are changing a lot there” and that “changes are slow”, some vague excuses that have not convinced Risto Mejide: “What have you done Haven’t you done anything?” The insistence of the presenter has driven Rubiales out of his boxes: “If you don’t let me speak, it’s difficult to explain myself,” he defended himself. “You put many labels and you are wrong sometimes. You have to let me speak,” he insisted. “We have reached an agreement with the UN… The only way to move forward is to go, involve the people and for those who are in charge there to see that things can be done differently, and it will come. When it is not done nothing is not going”.

In Qatar, homosexuality is punishable by up to 7 years in prison.

Should Spain have played in the World Cup? @ristomejide and Rubiales clash head-on on this issue.#ViajandoConChester #ChesterRubiales pic.twitter.com/fWZ3de0TGk

— Traveling with Chester (@Chester_cuatro) March 7, 2023

The tension has been maintained for several more minutes: Risto has accused him of being “cynical” and Rubiales has returned it with “demagogue”. The terrible anecdote of the Super Cup winners putting on their own medals gave way to a new disagreement: “If I have a minute to express myself…”, Rubiales repeated. “It offends me that you say that to me, you’ve come to Chester twice,” Risto responded emphatically. “It was a tremendous mess, I endured the downpour as the person in charge.” Mejide kept stinging: “You go out and apologize, it’s not worth it for you to eat it.” “I’ve been out two hundred thousand times.”

Rubiales, the alleged orgies and Gerard Piqué

His friendship with the former Barça defender and his disagreements with Tebas have also been in the spotlight: “There are certain media that are at the service of a nucleus of power and that have no qualms about crushing a person,” Rubiales explained. . “They have put me in the headline that I have taken the super cup to Saudi Arabia to benefit Piqué so that he collects commissions having a better offer from Qatar… And it is a lie. I have not had a better offer. I have done it to benefit Spanish football, because I get 40 million”. And he added: “We are annoying for certain nuclei of power, who had the Copa del Rey and now it has been democratized, and that we have from 140 million to 400 bothers… The stronger the base, they feel threatened.” Rubiales has settled: “What has been done to me has a lot to do with what has been done to Rossel. Sooner or later things are going to be shown in this country.”

The Dani Alves case and the corrupt referees

Luis Rubiales has also wanted to get wet in the latest controversies that torment football and that, on this occasion, have nothing to do with him. This is the case of the accusation of rape against Dani Alves, in pretrial detention for a month and a half: “I think it doesn’t matter if you are a footballer or dedicate yourself to anything. We are in a country where the law has to fall completely and force whoever you are. What I believe is that a public person is subjected to a very summary judgment at a time when that also entails a great injustice at times, because people get into the bag and they already judge you, and there will be cases and there have been where someone’s innocence has been proven, and they have been crushed”.

On the subject of the referees supposedly at the service of FC Barcelona (the Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the case for corruption), he has been blunt: “It seems tremendous to us that there is a person, whether active or retired, who is in a body and receives money from a club. It is normal that you have ex-referees within the club who report, or that they commission an external company”.