MADRID, 11 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The president of the Higher Sports Council (CSD), Víctor Francos, confessed that he wants the elections to elect the new president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), after the resignation of Luis Rubiales, to be carried out “as soon as possible.” before, in the first quarters of 2024″, and demanded that the interim president, Pedro Rocha, “make the profound changes that the players ask for.”
“The managing committee will have to convene in the established steps, which is approximately a month and a half, the election of the president, taking into account that this election is made with the 140 assembly members that we saw on the last day in the Extraordinary Assembly in which the Mr. Rubiales said that he would not resign. And this would be in the year 2024, in a case that it must be activated compulsorily,” Francos explained in statements in La Sexta reported by Europa Press.
After that option that would be activated automatically, the ordinary elections would arrive which, being an Olympic federation already qualified for Paris 2024, would take place after said summer event, therefore in the second half of next year. “What the CSD would like is for them to be done as soon as possible, if possible, in the first quarter of 2024,” said the Secretary of State for Sports.
“They will have to elect a president who will have to lead the RFEF to ordinary elections. What we have done forcefully is ask Pedro Rocha, when we have had the opportunity, that regardless of whether the deadlines are one month longer or one month less, he has to make the profound and structural changes to which he has committed,” he asked the interim president of the organization.
Francos insisted on asking Rocha “strongly” for these “structural” changes in the RFEF, recognizing that the footballers – who gave up returning to the national team if there was no transformation in the structure of women’s football in the RFEF – “are talking” with the organism. “The players ask for it and require it to be able to return normally and to be able to return without the worry that the RFEF has not done what the interim president promised on the first day when he took office,” he added.
Precisely, regarding Rubiales’ resignation this Sunday, he noted that he was not surprised. “I expected it and it was desirable, Mr. Rubiales has been seeing, from August 25 until yesterday, that there was a general, majority feeling, set of political forces, of the Government, of the associations, of athletes, of the federations, of the members of the team. There was no other way out,” he analyzed.
However, he did not hesitate to criticize the position of the Sports Administrative Court (TAD), after it described Rubiales’ conduct as “only” serious, preventing the CSD from disqualifying the former president. “The State needs more legislative and regulatory instruments that allow us not to be left without the possibility of action, with our hands tied.
“It seems to me, that someone has to reflect, that Mr. Rubiales has been more severe with himself than the TAD was with him, that is, someone should give that issue some thought,” he commented on the Court, before assuring that they will use “the preparation of the electoral order that will govern the elections of all the federations in Spain.”
Finally, Francos acknowledged that this incident “could have affected” the candidacy of Spain, Morocco and Portugal for the 2030 World Cup, although he has “the conviction”, without “simple and simple patriotism”, that it is “the best candidacy”. “. “We are convinced that we can convince the entire international community of the world of football that this has been a very limited, very determined incident, and that it should not prevent us from seeing a great forest ahead of us,” he concluded.