The Superior Sports Council (CSD) announced yesterday that it has already sent the additional documentation required in the complaint against Luis Rubiales to the Administrative Court of Sports (TAD). The court, which received on Friday at 10:40 p.m. the request to open a file from the president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation -provisionally suspended from office by FIFA-, requested more documentation on Monday, considering that, with the information provided, they could not file the Granada leader. This first step is mandatory so that later the board of directors of the government body chaired by Víctor Francos can provisionally suspend Rubiales until the TAD resolves. The final resolution should not go beyond five or six months in time so that the temporary disqualification, if it occurs, does not acquire the nature of a sentence. Minister Miquel Iceta stressed on Tuesday his confidence in the independence of the court.
The information requested and sent to the TAD consists of the statements issued by the federation, the soccer player Jennifer Hermoso and the Futpro union, “as well as the documentation attached to the complaint filed by the Professional Women’s Soccer League,” according to the CSD. The members of the TAD want to make sure that they can really open the file against Rubiales for a “very serious” misdemeanor for the kiss to Jennifer Hermoso. Due to serious misconduct, it is not possible to suspend, even if the TAD opens a file.
Promoted by the former president of the CSD Miguel Cardenal, since its creation in 2013 to replace the Spanish Committee for Sports Discipline, the TAD has been a source of controversy on several occasions. First in the conflicts between LaLiga, chaired by Tebas and the federation chaired by Villar and then in the contests that have already continued with Rubiales as federation president. This, when the decisions have not favored him, has not hesitated to criticize the TAD with federative statements. The suspended president of the federation is very satisfied with the new Sports Law, which replaces the TAD with a new body more controlled by the sports federations. Suspicions about who controlled the court have been and are mutual. The fears of its members that they will file complaints have been present many times. Some of them even ended up coming to fruition.
The CSD says it trusts the independence of the TAD members. Four of them are chosen by the CSD itself and the other three, by the sports federations. It is currently made up of the president, Francisco de Miguel Pajuelo (Social Security lawyer); the secretary, Guillermo de Blas Bados (State attorney); and the members Eva Fernández, (State lawyer), Pilar Juárez (Carlos III University professor), Alfonso Ramos del Molins (State lawyer), Marina Adela Porta Serrano (State lawyer) and Jaime Caravaca (State lawyer) . The latter is the nephew of Ramón Caravaca, who is associated with the GC office, directed by the federation’s external legal advisor, Tomás González Cueto.
One of the most lurid episodes in the history of the TAD occurred when Cardenal tried to open a file on Ángel María Villar for alleged favorable treatment of Recreativo de Huelva and Marino de Tenerife with the aim of suspending him later provisionally. At that time, the current general secretary of the federation, Andreu Camps, and González Cueto were members of the sports court. The two have been part of Rubiales’ governance and legal strategy in his five years at the helm of the federation Following information from EL PAÍS, González Cueto had to abstain from voting to open a file on Villar. The Basque leader had hired the services of a lawyer who collaborated with the Jiménez de Parga law firm, of which González Cueto was a part at that time.
The final vote was in favor of Villar 3-2, so the file was not initiated. The final vote was that of the president, who was Camps. But the two members who voted against it made a harsh writing against him. Shortly after, Camps cited personal reasons for leaving the TAD. González Cueto also abandoned him. In ordinary justice, the case was later archived by a Majadahonda court, but when the file was sent to the TAD five months earlier, there were indications to open a file on Villar because the case was investigated by the judge for a long time.
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