Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) headquarters and the home of its former president Luis Rubiales have been searched as part of an investigation into alleged corruption in the deal to play Supercopa de Espana games in Saudi Arabia.
Sources familiar with the case said it was planned that seven arrests would be made, with five further individuals to be placed under investigation in operations carried out across Spain.
The search on the RFEF offices was carried out by officers from the Guardia Civil — one of Spain’s two national police forces — in coordination with anti-corruption prosecutors and with the support of Europol.
Sources said 11 properties are to be searched — including the RFEF’s Madrid offices and Rubiales’ property in Granada.
A photo of the RFEF headquarters from August 2023 (Denis Doyle/Getty Images)
Spanish media reports have said Rubiales, who resigned as RFEF president in September following the fallout over his kiss on Jenni Hermoso after the 2023 Women’s World Cup final, is currently in the Dominican Republic.
Rubiales initially refused to resign as RFEF president over the incident, before eventually stepping down after being provisionally sanctioned by FIFA. He has always claimed Hermoso did give consent for him to kiss her — but is due to stand trial in Spain, having been investigated for potential charges of sexual assault and coercion.
Hermoso has testified that the kiss was not consensual, and that attempts were made to force her into saying the opposite. No date has yet been set for the trial.
A deal to revamp the Supercopa de Espana (Spain’s equivalent of the Community Shield) and move it to Saudi Arabia was agreed in 2019 and was worth a reported €240million over six seasons to the RFEF. Rubiales became RFEF president in 2018.
In April 2022, it was reported by Spanish media outlet El Confidencial that Kosmos, a company owned by former Barcelona defender Gerard Pique, played a key role in brokering the deal and was paid €24million.
It appears that Kosmos’ role in brokering the deal is not under investigation as the Guardia Civil has not contacted the company, asked for any new documents, or looked for anything from Pique or his house. A Kosmos spokesperson told The Athletic it would not be commenting on the matter. Pique and Rubiales have previously denied any wrongdoing.
The Guardia Civil investigation into the Supercopa initially started due to a formal legal complaint made by Miguel Angel Galan, on 30 May 2022, to a court in Majadahonda, Madrid.
That legal complaint included the awarding of the Supercopa contract mediated by Kosmos, the RFEF having hired private investigators to follow AFE (Spanish PFA) president David Aganzo, the use of federation funds to pay rent on Rubiales’ flat in Madrid, and the former president’s trip to New York in October 2018.
Galan is president of the Association for Transparency and Democracy in Sport, and previously spoke to The Athletic about corruption in the federation.
(Thomas Coex/AFP via Getty Images)
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