There are no changes in the presidency of the RFEF at least until early 2024. Pedro Rocha, the man appointed by Luis Rubiales to lead the transition, will be the one who remains in the presidency until the new elections. This has been proposed by the majority of the territorial presidents to the board of directors, the highest executive body after the resignation of the suspended president.
The position was agreed upon after a long meeting of the territorial ones in which different positions were expressed and which, due to the lack of unanimity, ended with a vote in which Rocha was supported by 14 territorial presidents, four spoke out against and there was a abstention. The decision was to propose to the board of directors – of which not everyone is a part – that the man from Extremadura take the reins of the management company and request permission from the Higher Sports Council to be able to advance mandate elections to the first quarter of 2024. In them The 140 members of the Assembly would be renewed and from there, as long as they obtain 15% of the endorsements, the candidates to direct Spanish football until 2028 would emerge. This means that the RFEF, with the permission of the Government, will be run by a manager with Rocha at the helm at least until January.
However, the presidents of the Valencian Community, Madrid, Las Palmas and Castilla-La Mancha defended that they saw legal loopholes in the agreed decision, something that the Basques were also not clear about. According to the reports they collected, the board of directors, constituted as manager since last Sunday, had no choice but to comply with the statutes and call immediate elections with the current assembly and elect a president who could act with full powers, which are in the manager. limited, as they explained, to the calling of elections and ordinary management, without the power, for example, to “incur extraordinary expenses” such as layoffs and hiring. It could not, for example, meet the demands of the World champions. On this point, federative sources consulted assure that it does have the capacity to formalize layoffs.
What they have also warned is that there may be a risk of challenging open elections if this manager calls them. That is why the proposal of the four territorial ones involved electing a new president, something that would be done in a maximum period of 30 days, executing the necessary changes – such as the dismissals of the general secretary, Andreu Camps, and the external legal advisor – and convening new elections, already appointing a new manager, made up of six members of the Delegate Commission and six of the board. These 12 people would pilot the pre-electoral renewal process of the entire Assembly, which lasted more than three months.
However, the board of directors, with its position against presidents such as the Valencian Salvador Gomar recorded in the minutes, has chosen to concentrate the renewal in a single electoral process that Rocha must call in January. According to legislation, these open elections must be held in the last quarter of the Olympic year, once the Games have taken place, and the CSD does not usually make exceptions. He has not done it with basketball despite the resignation of Jorge Garbajosa to make the jump to FIBA. Now, the scandal surrounding the Federation, and in which the Government of Spain was involved in trying to disqualify Rubiales for kissing Jenni Hermoso, may mean that this time they do allow the elections to be brought forward.
That is the request that Rocha, as president of the management company, must convey to the CSD so that it gives its permission to hold elections that would not be before March, but would allow the RFEF to renew itself before fighting for the Olympic medal in Paris and the German Euro Cup.
For the most part, the presidents have sided with Pedro Rocha, but they have not hidden the fact that there are discrepancies. “Everything that happened in the meeting is interpretable. There are those who say that we have to wait to hold elections in January, others that now and January…”, assured the president of the Federation of Las Palmas, José Juan Arencibia, who He is not a member of the board of directors and left Las Rozas after the conclave of presidents.
He was one of those who stood by Rocha. “He is a good man and his job is very difficult. Pedro’s figure is not discussed in any way for us, but he cannot control everything. The problem is who controls you without you knowing it,” he warned.
“You have to take steps and it is normal that when a president arrives he wants to have his people close. I wouldn’t trust anyone,” he added in reference to the dismissals of people close to Rubiales.
The only one who verbalized was Medina Cantalejo, the president of the Technical Committee of Referees. “Who brought him? Something very serious has happened and he has not spoken out, he has not defended his referees and I am hurt by that. The decisions must be made now,” said the Canary Islander.
