He Osasuna case, which led to the conviction of several of its managers for match-fixing in the 2013-14 season and has compromised its participation in the next Conference League for this reason, has once again turned Spanish football into a powder keg. After the decision of the UEFA inspectors to recommend that Osasuna’s license not be admitted for the next edition of what is considered the third European competition —to which its seventh place in the League entitles it—, a new battle has blossomed between the entities chaired by Luis Rubiales (Federation) and Javier Tebas (LaLiga). Given the insinuations in a statement from Osasuna that Rubiales had not been involved in the club’s defense against UEFA, the Federation not only denied this fact and described it as “infamy”, but also questioned Osasuna for not having complained against LaLiga , who was the one who denounced the case after obtaining a recorded confession from the then manager of the rojillo club, Angel Vizcay.
At the moment, LaLiga has not responded to these veiled accusations, but the last chapter of the series is the press conference offered this Tuesday by the general secretary of the RFEF, Andreu Camps, continuation of the words of Luis Rubiales, its president, during the General Assembly, in which he described the manifestations of the leaders of Osasuna as “hoaxes and falsehoods”.
On the one hand, Camps’ statements made it clear that Osasuna has an ally in the Federation, and not an enemy as stated in the harsh public note issued by the club last week. “The RFEF’s line of action is exactly that of Osasuna,” said Camps. And on the other hand, although the federation general secretary hid his hand at first, he later clearly pointed out the stone thrower: “They intend to accuse the president [Rubiales] that he didn’t come out in defense, which is uncertain about Osasuna,” Camps asserted, “but on the other hand, they make no mention of the fact that there are other people responsible for Spanish football [en referencia velada a Javier Tebas] that they do not intervene, when they were the ones who denounced the facts before the different instances”.
In the Federation they do not understand that the Osasuna case can affect them and they have interpreted that their complaints against Rubiales are remote-controlled from LaLiga. At one point in his speech, Camps dropped that they respond to writings that they are given “when they go to institutions in which they are represented.”
He Osasuna case It comes a long way, the 2013-14 season, when the club, in a precarious financial situation, and one step away from being relegated to the Second Division, decided, as evidenced by the court ruling, to buy two Betis players (Ivan Amaya and Xavi Torres ) to skew the results in your favor. With the arrival of the board chaired by Luis Sabalza, and according to Andreu Camps’ account of the events, the LFP requested a complementary audit from the CSD, and sent the results to the club, on February 18, 2015. At that time, the club takes the previous board before the duty court.
judicial instances
LaLiga also filed a complaint for misappropriation and sports corruption, against the then president Miguel Archanco, and against various executives of the entity. The judge, in an order issued on January 11, 2016, decided not to charge the club with corruption, and LaLiga appealed it in two different instances. After that, according to Camps, who described the employer’s battery of actions against Osasuna, “the judge tells LaLiga that the appeal for reform has no reason to exist”, and added that “Osasuna should not be legally charged” and leaves the leaders as “solely responsible for those crimes that were being investigated.” The Federation’s general secretary stressed that “the Royal Spanish Football Federation did not appear as a private prosecution or to accuse the club or to accuse the managers.”
The matter circulated through the various judicial instances, and the ruling of the Provincial Court of Navarra sentenced the defendants to various penalties for sports corruption and misappropriation. The Supreme Court ratified the decision of the Navarrese judges on January 19, 2023. A few months later, Osasuna qualified, for the first time in 17 seasons, for a European competition, the Conference League, and received the federative approval: the RFEF gave it the license to compete in UEFA, Andreu Camps explained, and after completing the forms registration, which asks, among other things, if the club has been involved in any case of sports corruption, the file was opened that could lead to Osasuna’s ineligibility for the Conference. “We have asked UEFA if there was a complaint from someone against Osasuna and they have told us no,” Camps clarified. “They did it ex officio before the information published at the time in the press.”
“The Federation has learned that LaLiga sent letters to FIFA and UEFA denouncing these events on March 9, 2015. UEFA and FIFA were aware of these events through LaLiga. In those writings it was said that it was deplorable that the Federation had not denounced the club and the managers”, concluded Camps in defense of the Federation after an Assembly that hinted at another possible conflict with LaLiga with the approval of new statutes that can subtract powers from the employer.
Rubiales announces the construction of a national stadium
The great surprise of the Assembly of the Spanish Football Federation held this Tuesday was the announcement made by Luis Rubiales of the construction project of a national stadium destined to host matches of the different teams and finals of the federative competitions. “We deserve to have a heritage and we want the Assembly to support us in the idea of building a national stadium for between 30,000 and 40,000 spectators, which has offices, sports and administrative land, with the Federation’s own land. We know that it is not necessary by law or by statute, but the Federation, due to its hard work, deserves everyone’s support and we make them part of a management success”, defended the federation president before the assembly members, who unanimously approved the accounts 2022. Rubiales, who promised to present the national stadium project at the next Ordinary Assembly scheduled for December, believes that the time has come to invest in the construction of a coliseum that increases the Federation’s capacity to generate own resources. “We have 96 million euros of benefits at a very difficult time in the last two years of the Federation, 61 in cash, and for part of these benefits I ask the Assembly to support an idea that the board of directors has received with affection and a Tremendous illusion”, he had an impact on the construction project of a national stadium. “We continue with the same heritage, we have not grown, we deserve more facilities. We have double the selections. Before it was only the boys and now we have seven females, more than the male ones, and we no longer have space. There are directors who work in shared offices and what we have at Ciudad del Futbol is a 75-year concession”, concluded Rubiales.
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Source: EL PAIS
