The long-awaited and surprising resignation of Luis Rubiales announced on Sunday night has been a relief within the Royal Football Federation (RFEF), where the last two weeks have been lived with considerable tension due to the situation created around to the already former president. Furthermore, among the many different consequences of Rubiales’ goodbye, surely the most important for the RFEF is the one that forces it to open a new electoral process as established in article 31.8 of its statutes.
In true Succession style, the race to sit in the presidential chair has already begun and everything indicates that the history of these elections will not envy the plot of the successful HBO series in any way.
The Higher Sports Council (CSD) will play a fundamental role in this entire process since it will supervise all stages in accordance with the RFEF, not only out of obligation but also to try to help wash the image of Spanish football after everything that has happened. The candidacy for the 2030 World Cup has been one of the big concerns since everything broke out and the elections should be a push for FIFA to once again look favorably on Spain.
For now, the first step will be to form the Management Committee, a procedure that Las Rozas sense (and hope) will happen on Wednesday so that the team can play this Tuesday against Cyprus without any other distractions than the ball. Once the Manager is formalized, whose members will be appointed between the interim president Pedro Rocha and the General Assembly, it will meet to draw up an agenda and conversations with the CSD will officially begin.
The law establishes that the electoral calls of the Spanish federations must take place in Olympic years but Rubiales’ resignation forces the RFEF to call elections in less than a month. This scenario is the one that both sides of the table want to avoid since it does not seem the most advisable to hold elections for the presidency at the end of the year and have to repeat them after a few months, when FIFA will have already validated the candidacies for the World Cup (next January or February). But in order to bypass the regulations, the authorization must come from the CSD and hence the importance of good harmony between both entities.
If everything goes as planned today, the elections would be held in January so that the RFEF takes a new direction as soon as possible. When the soccer team participates in the Games, the law establishes that they be organized once the competition is over, but the CSD is working to bypass this rule, as already happened in the last electoral process, and bring them forward.
This race for succession does not yet have names, although the first will surely end up being Pedro Rocha himself, now interim president. Any candidate must be endorsed by a minimum of 21 members of the General Assembly, the most complicated regulatory procedure that leaves many out of the race.
Parallel to this new electoral process, the complaint filed by the Prosecutor’s Office against Luis Rubiales for sexual assault and coercion after his kiss with Jenni Hermoso continues its course and on Monday was admitted for processing by the judge of the National Court Francisco de Jorge. In fact, through an order the magistrate has already undertaken the first steps such as collecting from Radio Televisión Española all the videos that record the events and also demanding from La Vanguardia, El País and As different clips related to the celebration of the title in the locker room and on the bus, and also the moment of the kiss.
