in search of peace in Spanish football and support to be president of the RFEF

2023-11-13 12:03:13

No matter which football corner you ask in recent times, the answer is the same. After a few weeks, everyone claps their ears to see Pedro Rocha occupying the chair in which he had screwed himself Luis Rubiales until his resignation ‘after hours’ on the night of September 10, but no one completely trusts the Extremaduran leader. Everyone is happy to see him (although, above all, they are pleased to see him). never see Rubiales again), but they also shake his hand with a frown and their guard up.

No, nobody trusts it. Better written, no one finishes decipher Rocha’s true intentions in the effective and undisguised effort he is making to rebuild the bridges that Rubiales, during the last five years, had unceremoniously bombed with the rest of the important offices of Spanish football. All those who were public enemies of the disqualified former president of the RFEF appreciate the change of course, the turn towards institutional normalitybut the true motivation is doubted: is there a sincere desire to restore peace in Spanish sport or is he just trying to gain sympathy to run for the RFEF elections and preside over it fully?

Because, yes, Rocha wants to be the next president of the RFEF. He has not said it in public and he is very careful about who he tells it to in private, but his will is firm. That, however, does not mean that he ends up presenting himself to the elections to be held between February and March, because he will not risk being burned at the stake if he does not see himself with enough support to guarantee his election. And, today, he doesn’t have them.

The territorial barons of the RFEF

In the meetings he has had with the rest of the territorial presidents, he has not found the closing of ranks that he wanted, not even promising a fight to ensure that they continue to be ex-officio members of the RFEF assembly, that is, without having to be elected for it. . Something that, on the other hand, the Government is not going to allow, as will be evident when the CSD publishes the final text of the Ministerial Order that regulates these processes, the draft of which is now in the bureaucratic and regulatory process of reviewing proposals from the agents involved.

Although, everything must be said, numerous versions of what happened escape, always ‘off the record’, from these meetings, each antagonistic to the other, because The ones Rocha and the rest of the territorial presidents trust the least are themselves. and each one plays his fight, with more than one baron interested (like the Madrid Paco Diez and, above all, the Valencian Salvador Gomar) in leading that great candidacy of broad consensus that Rocha himself longs for and that he is determined to put together. With him as a presidential candidate, of course.

And this is where almost the entire electoral game is played, as demonstrated by precedents in the RFEF itself and in the majority of large national sports federations. That is as true as, outside of the strictly federative mechanisms, there are many other votes at stake. And that is where the autumn tour of the president of the managing committee becomes relevant, Pedro Rocha ‘on tour’.

Rocha’s relationship with the Government

With the Government he aspires to maintain a cordial and collaborative relationship that can provide him with options such as plan b. Because the initial idea of ​​the CSD is that a woman be the president of the RFEF, as this newspaper reported, with Irene Lozano, Ana Muñoz and Elvira Andrés in the pools. Of course, no one is unaware that there will soon be a new Council of Ministers and that Miquel Iceta He aspires to promote a ministry of greater weight than that of Culture and Sports that he now occupies. And whoever inherits that chair (probably also a woman), will have a lot to say, also about the presidency of the CSD, since Victor Francos He is a man of Iceta’s greatest confidence.

Meanwhile, Rocha is responding to government demands, to the point that more than one club and more than one federation leader understands that the RFEF is de facto intervened by the CSD. Francos put Rocha and his team firmly in the Oliva Pacts with the world champions and that led to the dismissal of the general secretary Andrew Fields and those responsible for communication and integrity, Pablo García-Cuervo y Miguel García Caba. The three were replaced by leaders of the first ‘rubialism’, professionals with considerable resumes from whom Rubiales had withdrawn his confidence for not agreeing with millstones and accepting all his bullshit, now rehabilitated for this transitional stage.

The new RFEF-LaLiga understanding

They are also leading the reestablishment of relations with the rest of Spanish football agents. Both in LaLiga and in League F they value that the dialogue is now more fluid on the issues that both institutions must deal with. In the women’s league, the realization of the coordination agreement with the RFEF and in the male one you can also see green shoots: a few days ago the Federation responded to the request of Postponement of Mallorca-Cádiz due to a collision with FIFA dates when two years ago it flatly refused to adopt the same decision in a similar scenario.

Rocha, in fact, has attended the assemblies of the two organizations, something that Rubiales did not do. And he did it on days when it was easy to evade, since the LaLiga one overlapped with the signing of the Oliva Pacts and the women’s one was the same day as the women’s Switzerland-Spain. But Rocha attended and in both assemblies showed their predisposition to find consensus and work for the unity of Spanish football. He was absent from the F League presentation gala, but he did so due to a last-minute personal problem and he apologized for it. The president of the organization, Beatriz Alvarezexcused him in public and highlighted his commitment.

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Also striking was, this week, Rocha’s presence at the AFE union awards gala, with whose president, David Aganzo, Rubiales had a personal war since he changed the presidency of the union for that of the federation. And with episodes of alleged espionage and very ugly personal attacks. Rocha posed smiling with Aganzo himself, with Francos and with Tebas.

Added to all this institutional tour is the one he is doing in different cities that aspire to host the World Cup 2030, a race that will reach its final stretch in the coming weeks and in which Rocha’s RFEF does not want to rule out anyone yet. To do so would inevitably be to make enemies. And Rocha is just at the opposite point, trying to get rid of the sin of being the successor that Rubiales himself chose for himself. Something that is not easy to ignore.