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Two and a half hours of exposure, a giant red panel with the symbols of the Federation and a soccer president who tries to get his head out of the well into which he has fallen due to the revelations of “El Confidencial” regarding his millionaire dealings with Piqué , player and captain of Barça, businessman and commission agent who pockets 24 million for taking the Super Cup to Saudi Arabia. Luis Rubiales, raised in Motril and in the codes of football as he repeated several times, was the subject of data theft from his private telephone and the despicable matter is under police investigation. But Rubiales leaves many doubts regarding his employment relationship with Piqué, who received the money from Saudi Arabia, but worked for the Federation as the president admitted.
Also up in the air was the footballer’s conflict of interest, who according to the Federation’s Code of Ethics could not represent “secondary interests” as is the collection of commissions while he disputed and was a participant in the Super Cup.
Rubiales will not resign, according to his words of type thrown forward and “brave”, in his own descriptive version. He assures that he has faced a smear campaign since he joined the Federation, known by all the war of interests with the League and with the president of Mediapro Jaume Roures, he calls his enemies mafiosi and criminals but does not mention his name – «we all know who es », he comments after talking about the salary of the president of the League – and leaves a powerful headline. “Having seen what I have seen, I cannot guarantee that don’t put a sack of cocaine in my trunk», he says after the removal of the entrails of his mobile phone.
“I do not charge legal or illegal commissions,” says Rubiales with a firm voice, who says he has taken off the cap he wears every day, because “I have nothing to hide and I want to be seen.” I do not receive the salary of the president of the League, 3.5 million, and he generates less income than the Federation. My salary is with less fixed and more variables, but I ask them to talk about the crime I have suffered, about my mobile where the photos of my daughters are.
Rubiales offers a blunt version, immovable in its approach. «Kosmos (Piqué) proposes a change of format for the Super Cup. We talk to the US and Arabia, also China and India… We are aligned, but the federation does not pay commission to Kosmos, Saudi pays it». In other words, Piqué collaborates with the Federation to find a host country for the Super Cup, but the commission is paid to the footballer by the Arab country. And the player does not have direct access to the rectors of Arabia when he asks Rubiales in the audios if he thinks it is okay to turn to the King Emeritus.
Mobile theft
Rubiales shows his hacked mobile again and says: «We didn’t get to all the places, we didn’t get to Arabia. They bring us to Arabia. And Piqué can say what he wants in the audios, but we decide ». He admits that he helped the Barça footballer to collect his emoluments from Arabia as part of the codes of football and according to the contract.
He talks about the variables in his salary if Madrid and Barcelona do not play. “Yes, there is a difference in what the clubs charge for sports history, commercial impact. I understand what Simeone said, whom I admireand I would be scandalized, but the information is a lie ».
Always, without forgetting the enemy he does not want to mention. “On the advice of my lawyer I will not give names”, but he refers shortly after the contracts that Piqué has also made with the League and the commissions that he has received. «Piqué and Kosmos have benefited football with that partner. Why shouldn’t it be ethical? Why, if he charges 10 percent to the League, can’t he charge the same to Arabia?”he wonders.
Before exhausting the endless press conference, Rubiales refers again to his enemies, to his phone “and to the leak with encryption and through an application.” «It is mafioso that they have stolen my mobile to leak to the press, or to sell the information. I don’t think he’s going to turn up lying in a ditch with a shot to the back of the head, but what they’ve done is very serious.”
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