She was always the mother of the lamb of the Super Cup Case. Or, at least, one of the most important mothers. Both Luis Rubiales and Gerard Piqué have always denied that the operation to bring the Spanish Super Cup to Saudi Arabia, now investigated by the Majadahonda First Instance Court number 4, would have generated any payment from the RFEF to Kosmos, the former footballer’s company. And his enemies have never believed them. Justly? That will only be determined by time.
The position that both defend is that the RFEF signed a contract with the Saudi dictatorship, through the public company SELA, and that this in turn reached an agreement with Kosmos for the payment of a commission for intermediation services. But that there was not a euro crossed between them. Now the judge, as stated in a ruling to which this newspaper has had access, wants to make sure that this was indeed the case.
a “mandate”
As El Confidencial announced this Thursday, the judge has requested documentation from Piqué, but alludes to a contract (a word that is not mentioned) as such, but to a “mandate” that the former footballer himself acknowledged having received from the RFEF. A “mandate” or authorization that the entity chaired by Luis Rubiales recognizes, but that they frame within normality and that, they emphasize, was not paid in any case.
The requirement is based on a phrase by Piqué at the famous press conference he offered through his Twitch channel when his conversations with Rubiales and documents about the agreement to bring the Super Cup to Arabia began to be revealed. The already retired central defender assured that “The RFEF signed us a mandate in which we can go abroad to look for possible options to take the Spanish Super Cup”mentioning that there were alternative options to the Saudi, such as Miami.
Quoting that statement, the Association for Transparency and Democracy in Sports, chaired by Miguel Ángel Galán, which acts as popular prosecution, asked the prosecutor to, in turn, urge the judge to request the documentation of said mandate. Both the prosecutor and the judge understood the procedure to be appropriate, which Piqué must attend to within a period of 10 days from March 2, the date on which the ruling was issued.
An authorization
Federal sources explain naturally that it was a common “authorization” in the world of sponsorships, as guarantee to a third party that an intermediary has the authority to offer the service it claims to provide. Furthermore, it is not (or does not have to be) an exclusive authorization, more agencies or companies interested in the operation may have them.
In this case, Kosmos proposed to other countries the celebration in them of the Super Cup and by means of that letter he attested that he could do so. Subsequently, the intermediation work was the one that was remunerated in the event that the operation materialized, but the payments, according to the versions defended by Piqué and the RFEF, were from Saudi Arabia and Kosmos (for an amount of 24 million euros). , in an agreement different from that of the federal entity with the dictatorship. “The contract, if it has one, is with Saudi Arabia, not with us.” remark from Las Rozas.
Access to accounting
Related news
The judge, in any case, will have access during the procedure to the accounting of the RFEF, in which any alleged payment to Piqué or Kosmos should appear. The Federation delivered this documentation to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and since the end of last year it has been investigated by the General Intervention of the State Administration, a body dependent on the Ministry of Finance.
Once said analysis is finished, the IGAE officials will issue a report to the head of the Investigating Court number 4 of Majadahonda (Madrid), Delia Rodrigo, who is investigating the alleged crimes of unfair administration and corruption in the denounced businesses. This judge assumed the rest of the cases that had been opened on similar events in other courts in Madrid.