Sports institutions bless Pedro Rocha as future president of the RFEF despite the scandals surrounding him

Pedro Rocha (Cáceres, 69 years old) is heading towards the presidency of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) with the approval of all levels of national and international football and the Higher Sports Council (CSD). The last filter that Rocha has passed was that of FIFA. It was this Friday, at a meeting at the Las Rozas Football City in which Rocha's two right-hand men, Elvira Andrés and Alfredo Olivares, and Mattias Grafsröm and Emilio García Silvero, general secretary and director of legal services of Rocha, were present. FIFA, respectively. FIFA, for the moment, will not intervene in the federation even though sufficient reasons have already been given to do so. It will remain attentive to how the entire electoral process develops and has carte blanche to go hand in hand with the CSD to intervene in the future if it deems appropriate.

With the blessing of FIFA, nothing and no one seems to be able to stop Rocha's career towards the federative chair, remunerated with 600,000 euros a year. Neither being hand-picked by Luis Rubiales as his successor nor participating as president of the economic commission in the management of his predecessor, now investigated within the framework of Operation Brodie, have aborted Rocha's attempt to access the presidency of Spanish football. Nor has it made a dent in the aspirations of the Extremaduran leader to run in the elections on May 6 that his main lawyer and defendant in the aforementioned Brodie operation, Tomás González Cueto, tried to compose an electoral commission tailored to him, just as includes the summary of the case opened in court number 4 of Majadahonda, in which alleged crimes of corruption, unfair administration and membership in a criminal organization are investigated. Nor has it stopped Rocha that the controversial Sports Administrative Court (TAD), a body dependent on the CSD, has a complaint in its possession to file a case for very serious misconduct for not having called elections in due time and having exceeded its limits. in his duties as president of the managing commission that governs the day-to-day running of the federation since Rubiales resigned in September.

The TAD met on Thursday, but has not commented on the matter. This Sunday the deadline for submitting candidatures opens and on Thursday the deadline for submitting the 21 necessary endorsements to qualify for the presidency of the RFEF closes. Everything indicates that the only candidate who would have the endorsements is Rocha. If this is so, on Friday, April 12, he would be president without the need for elections to be held.

If the TAD does not speak out sooner, the path will be smoother for Rocha. If the sports court opened a file against him, the CSD would have a hot potato because it would have to decide whether or not to call its board of directors to provisionally suspend him since it was a very serious offense. Both the CSD and the TAD have been involved in the Operation Brodie summary. The Civil Guard's telephone taps intercepted a call between Tomás González Cueto and Fernando Molinero, CSD sports director. In the conversation, González Cueto, after insinuating that he could have three members of the TAD under control, tried to pressure Molinero to work in favor of there being only one electoral process, which is what Rocha intended. Finally, the TAD issued a favorable report for there to be two elections, the one mentioned on May 6, to exhaust the mandate of Luis Rubiales, and others after the Paris Games, for the 2024-2028 Olympic cycle. Although the report was not binding, the CSD also chose to approve the two electoral processes, but the revealed part of González Cueto's conversation with Molinero, to say the least, was compromising. The CSD defends that González Cueto's pressures had no effect.

Rocha also has the support of LaLiga, which defends him in football lies as the man who has brought peace and stability to Spanish football because he does not litigate like Rubiales. The armistice between the federation and the employers' association was to withdraw from the lawsuit against the employer's agreement with CVC. Of course, Rocha has the support of the presidents of the majority of the territorial ones, almost the same ones who once supported Villar and later Rubiales. The only way to, at the very least, delay Rocha presiding over the federation is to make efforts quixotic of the president of Cenafe, Miguel Galán, who has challenged the call because 42 of the assembly members who vote have lost their status as such and must be restored through elections. The last to leave the assembly is the former women's coach Jorge Vilda, who has resigned by letter, in what may be his revenge after being fired by Rocha.

You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes in Facebook and xor sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.

_