2023-09-15 23:30:06
The international soccer players They issued a statement this Friday asking for more structural changes in the Federation to be able to return to the National Team in a safe environment. In the text, they refer to the different departments that they consider have not been up to par, not only since the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
The specific demands in the statement are these:
“Because of the above, we break down in detail the changes requested so that this type of attitude does not happen again, and in order to have absolute transparency:
-Restructuring of the women’s football organization chart.
-Restructuring of the presidential cabinet and General Secretariat.
-Resignation of the president of the RFEF.
-Restructuring of the communication and marketing area.
-Restructuring of the integrity management.
Today, as we have transmitted to the RFEF, the changes that have occurred are not enough for the players to feel in a safe place, where women are respected, there is a commitment to women’s football and where we can give our maximum performance.
However, the players have not given names and surnames to the people who make up the different areas, for a legal issue, advised by the legal services that are supporting them. The Federation’s organizational chart provides more clues about the positions they refer to. They are some of Rubiales’s squires who now see their positions in danger.
-Female organizational chart
Rafa del Amo is the president of women’s football of the RFEF. He resigned on the day of the Assembly in which Rubiales was applauded, but continues to exercise his responsibility after stating days later that Pedro Rocha did not accept his resignation letter. Ana Álvarez, for her part, is the director of women’s football at the RFEF. Both have led an internal current, trying to convince the players that the changes they expected would come, but which they have interpreted as a slight facelift to save their position.
Both were especially belligerent with them when they demanded professionalization and asked for a structure in accordance with their potential and the performance they could achieve, although now both Del Amo and Álvarez would have changed their version. The latter is the only person in the structure of the women’s football area who has not condemned the words of Luis Rubiales so far, and who was present at the Assembly applauding the speech of, until a few days ago, president of the RFEF.
-Cabinet of the presidency and General Secretariat
Elvira Andrés has recently assumed the position of Chief of Staff of the presidency, replacing Chema Timóna trusted man of Rubiales, who despite changing positions remains in the federative structure. Timón is Rubiales’ most trusted man. Although he was already part of the Presidential Cabinet as coordinator in his previous years, He became the boss after the dismissal of Juan Rubiales in 2020. He is one of the colleagues, a journalist by profession, who already worked at AFE alongside Rubiales, until they went together to the RFEF after winning the elections in 2018. He carried out professional internships in charge of social networks in the union with Rubiales and was who coordinated his entire campaign as a candidate for the 2018 elections in the RFEF.
Antonio Gómez-Reino, Director of Institutional Relations at the Royal Spanish Football Federation, works in the same cabinet. and second, after Chema Timón, in the Presidential Cabinet. Lawyer and journalist, he worked for more than 15 years in the world of communication with clients such as Albert Rivera, former president of Ciudadanos. A member of RCD Espanyol was the one who put him in contact with Luis Rubiales to be part of his trusted team. Since then, he has been one of the determining men in the environment of the president of the RFEF.
The general secretary is Andreu Camps. He has held the general secretary position since 2018 and is one of the most visible faces of the RFEF. According to the players, he is Luis Rubiales’ right-hand man and the brain behind managing the negotiations with the players when, after the last Euro Cup in 2022, they already demanded the changes. The players never liked his rigidity when negotiating, seeing him as an obstacle to the best ones they considered necessary.
Before the RFEF he was in the Administrative Court of Sports (TAD) since 2017, who is now studying the complaints filed by the Higher Sports Council, coinciding with the departure of Tomás González Cueto. Camps left his position at the TAD a few months after his arrival, presented his resignation to the Secretary of State and justified his departure by citing personal reasons. Within his long professional career, his collaboration as an advisor to the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on legal matters also stands out. He was the one who sent the letter to UEFA denouncing interference by the Government to cause a hypothetical sanction to Spanish football. The European body has already communicated that it will not attend to it.
-Resignation of the president of the RFEF
The players demand the resignation of the president of the Federation. This lawsuit refers, in the first instance, to Luis Rubiales. The one from Motril has already resigned. The reason that this request appears in the signed document is because it includes a compilation of all the demands that have been put on the table since the beginning of the conflict.
It remains to be clarified whether this claim also extends to the current acting president, Pedro Rocha. Not in vain, he was Luis Rubiales’ trusted man in the last five years and hand-picked by him after a trick to put him in the position. Knowing that he was going to be disqualified by FIFA, before the Assembly on August 25, he gathered his board of directors to dismiss all the vice presidents and leave only the Extremaduran to succeed him.
Pedro Rocha is the current president after the disqualification and subsequent resignation of Rubiales, and has been at his side since he came to office.. So much so that he was economic vice president of the RFEF since 2020 and was named president of the Footballers’ Mutual Association in 2022. Now he is in charge and has at least the next three months of the organization in his hands.. The rest of the presidents see him as a very capable and prepared man, but they also recognize that “they have a problem,” that they would like to step aside and that it is best to start from scratch.
-Communication and marketing area
Composed of a team of up to 30 professionals, the current communications director, since 2021, is Pablo García Cuervo. He knows Luis Rubiales from his time at Levante, when García Cuervo was carrying out his professional work in Valencia. He first served as press officer for the men’s soccer team and later He succeeded Marisa González as head of the communications team. He was also press officer of the Spanish Olympic Committee at the Tokyo Olympic Games. Patricia Pérez, better known as ‘Poki’, is the press manager for the women’s team.
As for marketing, its director is Rubén Rivera. He worked with Rubiales in AFE as a trusted man, but left the union days before the elections to the RFEF, where he joined after Luis Rubiales’ victory. He is one of the faithful to the until now president of the Federation and the players feel very disappointed by his behavior.
-Integrity Directorate
The Integrity Department was the one who prepared the internal report on what happened after the World Cup final due to the behavior of President Luis Rubiales. Regarding the statement sent with words from Jenni Hermoso that did not correspond to the player, according to OK Diary the aforementioned Patricia Pérez (‘Poki’), press officer of the Women’s National Team; Ana Álvarez, director of women’s soccer; and Pablo García Cuervo, communications director, would have received the player’s approval. The aforementioned media assures that This was confirmed by Patricia Pérez in her statement signed, despite the fact that, as Relevo reported and the soccer players maintain, they are statements that the soccer player neither uttered nor authorized. As Relevo has been able to confirm, Patricia Pérez felt pressured when testifying, in the presence of her superiors, in the Integrity Departmentwhich included the published statement and included it in the RFEF internal report.
Integrity is directed by Miguel García Caba, who was head of the department of the Legal Services Directorate of Real Madrid between 2016 and 2018.. He met Luis Rubiales in the clubs’ various negotiations with LaLiga. He joined the RFEF as director of legal services, but Luis lost confidence in him, which led to his departure from the Federation. He regained the trust of the leadership and returned to the RFEF after being denounced for a recording to his former boss and president of LaLiga, Javier Tebas, and the former secretary general of the Federation, Gerardo González Otero. He is currently responsible for the Integrity department. He is a member of the UEFA Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Committee and was part of the Legal and CSR Commission of the Spanish Olympic Committee.
An all-terrain journalist, Natalia Torrente has worked in communication, press, radio, television and now covers investigative topics for Relevo. She has a degree in Audiovisual Communication at the URJC, she accumulates countless League and Cup matches in her backpack, she is interested in women’s sports and her passion is Rayo Vallecano. She has covered several Champions League and Europa League finals as a reporter in presidential boxes, and as a journalist in two women’s soccer World Cups. In the last one, she managed to uncover the RFEF’s pressure on Jenni Hermoso to cover up the image crisis that occurred in the celebration after the final. She has also brought to light news in the sports field, such as the international network present after the ‘Majida File’. …
Alfredo Matilla is Relief Chief of Information. Born in Alcázar de San Juan (Ciudad Real) and midfielder as a way of life. Graduated from the Complutense University, he also has a Master’s Degree in Sports Psychology. He has gone from being a footballer for Albacete Balompié to coordinating work in an editorial office. He was at AS for 17 years, where he followed Real Madrid around the world and saw the light of his blog Mr. Pentland, and he also collaborates with SER, has been a member of TVE and is a writer: his first book is ‘Just in case’ of KO Books. …
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