The former president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), Luis Rubiales, is free after members of the Civil Guard picked him up on the Barajas runway having recently landed from the Dominican Republic.
Rubiales got off the plane accompanied by an agent and got into a black van with several members of the UCO, the Central Operational Unit of the Civil Guard, who took him to the Civil Guard offices at the airport, before releasing him. . Although there was speculation about his arrest, the police’s intention was only to notify him of his accusation, inform him of his situation and not take a statement of any kind, so he is a free man.
Rubiales landed this morning from the Dominican Republic and upon his arrival in Madrid several agents were waiting for him on the landing strip, according to journalist Ana Pastor, who was traveling on the same flight.
Rubiales, investigated for alleged corruption crimes in a court in Majadahonda (Madrid), was scheduled to return to the country next Saturday, although he has finally decided to bring forward his return to Spain.
At the arrivals terminal, which Rubiales did not pass through, fifty journalists were waiting, as well as a strong police presence with members of the Civil Guard and the National Police.
Last Monday, the Central Operational Unit of the Civil Guard (UCO), together with security forces from the Dominican Republic, registered the temporary accommodation of the former president of the Spanish Football Federation in this country, where he has remained for a few months. There, two electronic devices, his mobile phone and tablet, were seized.
This piece that emerges from the UCO investigation is the only one that remains under summary secrecy, so further details are unknown.
Rubiales was in the Dominican Republic, from where he planned to travel to Spain this Saturday to appear before the judge investigating possibly irregular contracts from the last five years in the RFEF, coinciding with Rubiales’ time at the head of the entity. .
Yesterday, journalist Ana Pastor recorded an interview with the former president of the Federation (which will be broadcast tonight) in which Rubiales maintains his innocence and assures that all the money he has is the result of his work. After the recording, the LaSexta team returned to Spain on the same flight as Rubiales.
The Civil Guard suspects that the Spanish Football Federation, during the time of Luis Rubiales as president, would have hired the construction company Gruconsa for the RFEF works “in exchange” for it making “payments” to a company managed by its ” friend” Francisco Javier Martín, known as ‘Nene’.
This company was chosen to carry out the remodeling works of the La Cartuja stadium, in Seville, to host Euro 2020 matches and the Copa del Rey finals from that year to 2024; some contracts that are also the subject of this investigation, directed by the investigating court number 4 of Majadahonda (Madrid). The UCO estimates that between 2019 and 2023 Gruconsa invoiced 3.8 million euros to the RFEF and the public company Estadio Cartuja in Seville. Furthermore, according to the report, Gruconsa would have introduced items to pay third parties in the invoices it issued to the RFEF.
