The Football Federation (RFEF) has decided to call elections for the president – and not for the Assembly – to replace Pedro Rocha, who was officially disqualified for two years last Thursday and who left office after the decision of the Administrative Court of Sports (TAD) in June that he exceeded his decisions while he was president of the management company that replaced Luis Rubiales.
At a board meeting held on Friday afternoon at the RFEF headquarters in Las Rozas, the steering committee, the provisional governing body in the absence of a president, was formed, where there was a debate on the measures to be taken.
Finally, the commission decided to extend the deadlines for calling presidential elections – as stated in the RFEF statutes, which specify that the manager’s mission is to call presidential elections for the remaining term of office. for the previous one, in this case, it was a matter of days – instead of directly calling the next parliamentary elections, as supported by a new decree approved by the government in January, which accelerated the renewal of the RFEF and the possibility of external candidates. The elections to the Assembly were to be called on the 10th, which became impossible after Rocha’s suspension, but they must in any case take place in 2024. This new Assembly must elect the presidency of the RFEF for the next four years.
Sources from the Federation have already told elDiario.es after Rocha’s departure this Thursday – dismissed precisely for not calling elections and making decisions outside his capacities – that caution had to be exercised and that the precedent weighed, so the “logic” had to be very scrupulous in avoiding new allegations and calling the presidential elections first, which stretches the electoral gum because it adds an intermediate president, something that some regional presidents considered avoidable to give more agility to the changes underway in the Federation.
With the decision taken this Friday, it will be the current Assembly (heir to the Rubiales era, where there are 134 men and 6 women and who supported Rocha recently indicted in a corruption case) that will elect this intermediate presidency that will begin the full electoral process. That is why it is expected that it will be an official candidate who can gather support and who will be proclaimed with some members of the assembly who share the same ideas, among which are the territorial presidents. From there, this person will lead the Federation towards a renewal, although having control over deadlines and appeals is essential.
The decision, which chooses to respect the RFEF statutes rather than the more lax government order, also benefits Rocha, because it delays the final electoral process, which elects its leader for four years, and even gives him time to resort to another precautionary measure to try to appear.
