This Friday, the same day that he can be proclaimed virtual president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) because the lawyer Eva Parera and the journalist Carlos Herrera have not gathered the 21 endorsements required to present the candidacies, Pedro Rocha (Cáceres, 69 years) will testify as a witness to Operation Brodie. Rocha will appear before Judge Delia Rodrigo, who is investigating alleged irregularities in contracts related to the federation over the last five years.
The first image of Rocha as the new boss of the RFEF will be entering court number 4 in Majadahonda. There he will have to testify about whether while he was president of the managing commission he obstructed justice by not having transferred the documentation that the judge requested from the federation due to the investigations carried out. This was the trigger for the aforementioned operation that led to the search of the federative headquarters of the Las Rozas Football City and the arrest of several federation leaders. The magistrate investigates alleged crimes of corruption in business, unfair administration and membership in a criminal organization. Former president Luis Rubiales and former external commissioner of the federation Tomás González Cueto, among others, are already accused in the case.
Rocha will not only have to answer for his alleged obstruction of justice, he will also be questioned by the lawyers of the accusations. Before these, he must answer whether he had responsibility as president of the federative economic commission in the awarding of contracts to the construction company Gruconsa, in which a brother of Pedro González Segura, director of the legal services of the RFEF, works. The alleged extra costs of the trips of the different teams that the judge is investigating will also be on the menu of the interrogation to which the Extremaduran leader will be subjected. Rocha, who comes to testify as a witness, runs the risk of leaving the court as a defendant. If this were to happen, a new complex mess would open up to unravel. The federation has removed all those investigated within the framework of Operation Brodie from their duties. It is assumed that Rocha would not be an exception, so the institution would once again be beheaded.
Rocha, who lives surrounded by legal conflicts that cloud his investiture, was also waiting this Thursday for the ruling of the Administrative Court of Sports (TAD) in relation to the reasoned request raised by the Higher Sports Council (CSD) for him to A file is being filed against him for very serious misconduct. Specifically, for not calling elections at his due time and for having exceeded his duties as president of the managing committee. At the time of going to press, the TAD had not commented.
The sports court also had to decide on the challenge to the call for elections presented by Miguel Galán, president of the Cenafe coaching school. Galán also requested that the 42 assembly members who have lost their status as such be reinstated.
If the electoral calendar indicated that Thursday was the last day for the candidates to deliver their endorsements, the provisional proclamation of the candidacies for the presidency of Spanish football was set for this Friday. As the only candidate who has obtained the endorsements, 107 he has presented, Rocha will officially be president of the RFEF next Monday without the need for the elections scheduled for May 6 to be held.
Rocha has shown muscle with 107 endorsements, interpreted as a sign of peace and unity of Spanish football. Like his predecessors, Ángel María Villar and Luis Rubiales, he will now be able to defend himself against any attempt to overthrow him with the hackneyed phrase “all of football voted for me.” Of course, it is the first time that all the presidents of the territorial and LaLiga have agreed on a candidate. Yesterday Javier Tebas defended Rocha as if he were a lesser evil. “It is not a question of continuity, it is a matter of seeking solutions to the problem that exists. Which comes from the time of Villar, whom I also denounced in 2004. We are going to look for solutions and we can find thousands of people better than Rocha, but is there any viability for that person to be president of the federation? No.”, argued the president of the employers’ association during an event. In his presentation, Tebas allowed himself licenses that in other times would have been unthinkable, such as demanding internal changes in the RFEF in exchange for his support, which reveals the weakness of Rocha and the institution. “We’ll see what people he surrounds himself with. He will have to make changes if he wants to be re-elected in the fall,” Tebas warned.
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