In Galician politics, family is almost everything. Belonging to this or that clan has allowed many to grow beyond their means, even without having graduated from school, as is the case of Rafael Louzán (Ribadumia, 1967), recently elected president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF). ). In the land of meigas There are no coincidences, but rather more or less convenient friendships, which allow miracles such as starting out as a janitor at a sports center and ending up years later presiding over the Provincial Council of Pontevedra.
Louzán, elected a few days ago as the new rector of Spanish football with the votes of, among others, FC Barcelona and the Catalan Federation, comes from one of the most successful political families in Galicia, known as the berets for its link with the rural world. This sector of the Popular Party that emerged in the eighties had as its patriarch Xosé Cuíña, Manuel Fraga’s right-hand man and his eternal successor.
“We Madrid fans are very happy with him, I am at his disposal,” says Florentino.
Louzán’s first godfather in the city council of Ribadumia, his hometown and from where he rose to stardom, was José Ramón Barral, ‘Nené’, mayor of the city for 18 years and for the authorities one of the main tobacco traffickers. from Galicia and right arm of Vicente Otero Terito (who in the famous book Farina was dedicated to tobacco smuggling). He was the one who elevated Louzán first to an errand boy, then to a sports center janitor and later to a class politician. Under Cuíña he would go from deputy mayor of his town (1995) to organizational secretary of the Popular Party of Pontevedra (1998), after his mentor, Nené, was expelled from the party after finally being arrested for smuggling. And from there he made the leap to the Provincial Council of Pontevedra (2003), where he spent more than a decade. From there he became a key name in Galician politics.
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Rafa Louzán’s career has been constantly punctuated by accusations of bossism, foul play and corruption. A world of Galician politics in which although everything is as it seems, it is always impossible to prove it. As it was never known if it was Louzán who betrayed Nené with an anonymous call for him to be arrested, or if he changed sides at the last minute to harm Cuíña in his candidacy to preside over the Galician PP. Nor if there was a support network created by him called the mayors union which was key in the subsequent election of Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
Problems with the law did not take long to arrive. One of his big projects was to irrigate artificial grass fields throughout the province. His detractors accused him of granting public contracts to companies linked to his environment. The only thing that could be proven was that he had paid, in 2013, 86,311 euros for improvements to the Moraña soccer field that, for the most part, had already been executed under a previous contract from 2011. For this reason, he was convicted of fraud. and prevarication, although he would only be firmly condemned (you know that proving what happens is not that simple) for prevarication. Years before, in 2014, he had already abandoned politics to be president of the Galician football federation, where in 2021 he received a two-year prison sentence and a 7-year disqualification from holding public office, whose appeal to be exonerated was presented to The Supreme Court will be resolved on February 2.
The Supreme Court must decide next February on his disqualification from public office
Close friend of Javier Tebas and self-confessed Real Madrid fan and admirer of Florentino Pérez, a few days ago, in an interview with Telemadrid said verbatim: “I have known him for a long time and I have great admiration for his work, for where he has taken this club and all of us in Madrid are very happy with his management.”
For his new project in the Federation to be successful, he will need his alliances more than ever, because although he defends that his disqualification does not affect a private entity, the statutes include black on white as a requirement that “not be disqualified from public office.” This will be another of those contradictions that have always accompanied him and that he is used to overcoming.
#Louzán #art #thriving
