The Higher Sports Council (CSD) has convened its board of directors for Thursday morning in order to put to a vote whether Pedro Rocha and the managing committee of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) are provisionally suspended for serious misconduct. serious after having exceeded his duties. For this reason, the Sports Administrative Court (TAD) opened a file against Rocha, who was the president of the Management Company, and its members on April 15.
After the statements last Friday by the president of the CSD, José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes, the next step is the provisional suspension of the Extremaduran leader and the entire management company. “It is unthinkable that the representative of Spanish football for the Euro Cup or for the Olympic Games could be a person investigated in a criminal case and under suspicion by the Administrative Court of Sports for alleged disciplinary infractions classified as very serious. As a country, we cannot allow this to happen,” said Uribes.
The duration of the suspension will depend on how long it takes for the TAD to issue a resolution that can lead to a disqualification of the entire federation leadership for a period of between two to five years, according to the Sports Law of 1990, or two to five years. 15 years if the sanctioning regime of the new Sports Law is applied.
The legal services of the CSD have found themselves with the obstacle of how to sanction Rocha because he currently does not hold any position when he resigned from the managing commission and the Extremaduran territorial commission in order to be a candidate for the presidency of the RFEF: he was, in addition, the only candidate and, therefore, virtual president, since his proclamation is paralyzed for the moment. One of the possible ways is to rely, in part, on the precedent of Juan Padrón, who was Ángel María Villar’s right-hand man. On July 25, 2017, Padrón was provisionally suspended by the CSD board of directors.d caution because there were no certainties about whether he held any position in the RFEF. The TAD opened a file on Villar and Padrón following their arrest and imprisonment within the framework of Operation Soule, in which Judge Pedraz described an alleged clientelistic network and alleged crimes of unfair administration, business corruption, misappropriation and documentary falsification.
When Operation Soule was unleashed, the Basque leader had been proclaimed president of the RFEF, but had not yet appointed a board of directors, so Padrón did not hold any position. Villar was going to grant him continuity in his position as vice president, but he did not give him time when he was arrested. This caused two points to be included in the resolution of the board of directors. In the first, the provisional suspension of both was announced in accordance with the Sports Law of 1990 and in the second, it was specified: “With regard to the suspension of Juan Morales Padrón, the suspension agreement is conditioned by the RFEF “the status of director, member of the governing or control body of the aforementioned federation is accredited.”
In the case of Rocha, the CSD does know with certainty that he does not hold any position, so the suspension would become effective the moment he is proclaimed president of the federation, with April 26 as the deadline scheduled in the electoral calendar after that a series of appeals for alleged irregularities regarding the census of assembly members have been resolved. In this regard, the electoral commission this Monday rejected that of Miguel Galán, president of the Cenafe coaching school, who has appealed the decision to the TAD.
Rocha, virtual president of the RFEF as he is the only candidate who presented the 21 necessary endorsements, has refused, so far, to resign in the face of pressure from the government body. The Extremaduran leader considers that stepping aside means accepting that he exceeded his duties as president of the management company in matters such as renewing coach Luis de la Fuente or having withdrawn the federation from the lawsuit against LaLiga’s agreement with the CVC fund. At the time the suspension becomes effective, Rocha will not be able to appoint a board of directors and the federation will be completely beheaded. The scenarios that will open will be either an intervention by FIFA or a new electoral process.
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