Thread by @MichaelEmilio_

The complete story between Luis
Rubiales and RFEF — A Thread:

• Part 1 — AFE & Tamara Ramos

So, let’s start off from the very beginning when Luis Rubiales in 2010 took over the role as president of “the Spanish Players’ Association” — also known as “AFE”.

At AFE he would meet Tamara Ramos who was their marketing manager at the time. Earlier this week, Ms. Ramos publicly denounced Rubiales’ nonconsensual kiss on Jennifer Hermoso after the WWC final. She also opened up about her own personal experience with the ex-AFE president in a public interview.

Here is some of what she said:

— I told Rubiales that I was pregnant as my child’s father was an ex-teammate and friend of him. I asked him to please not tell anyone else as no-one knew yet, not even my parents. 5 minutes later, I returned to my office as he had arranged a meeting with all the employees. In front of everyone he said “I just inform you all that Tamara is pregnant”, for seemingly no reason.

— After the meeting he said “I already told you to get fucked from behind instead”.
(Implying that she could’ve avoided getting pregnant if she had anal sex).

— “I have suffered humiliations at the hands of Luis, it has been ridiculous.”

— He asked me things like “What color underwear are you wearing today?”

— He also said: “Come on, Tamara! It’s time to put on your knee pads!”

— “These events were one of the worst things that anyone has ever done to me”.

RFEF would quickly come out against Tamara in a public statement where they denied everything, threatened with legal action, and used an RFEF job application from Ms. Ramos as their arguments.

Full translated statements:

Photo 1 — Spanish (Original)
Photo 2 — English (Translated)
Photo 3 — German (Translated)
Photo 4 — French (Translated)

In response, Tamara Ramos said:
— “It’s unbelievable how RFEF’s defense team can so confidently talk about things that happened within AFE, when AFE isn’t even a part of the federation.”

Essentially, she’s calling out RFEF for always blindly defending Rubiales no matter what he does/says.

Just a reminder that this is the figure who was supposed represent players from all over Spain as their “Players Association” president… Luis Rubiales would stay in his AFE position for seven years, until he quit in 2017 in search of bigger and “better”things: Becoming the RFEF president.

• Part 2 — The RFEF Elections

The year was 2018, and Angel Villar had just left his position as RFEF’s president following charges of corruption, falsifying documents, embezzlement and collusion. The federation was already rotten before Luis Rubiales ran for presidency this year, and it would only get worse from here.

By the time the elections rolled around, Jorge Vilda had managed the one of the world’s best national teams, the Spanish women’s national team for 3 years without any notable success. A lot of supporters understandably had complaints about the team’s results, and many of the Spanish players had complaints about Vilda’s behavior behind the scenes.

Pressure mounted, and things started heating up for Jorge Vilda. Luckily for him though, his father Ángel Vilda possesses great influence within Spanish football. Jorge and Ángel would both cast their votes to Luis Rubiales, who would go on to win the 2018 RFEF presidential elections.

“If you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”.

Ever since then, Jorge Vilda has clearly and “coincidentally” become untouchable in his position as the Spanish women’s national team’s head-coach. A position which he again only received because of his father’s connections within RFEF. And yes, these connections extend all the way to the previously mentioned Angel Villar (corrupt ex-RFEF president), who was in charge when Vilda was initially appointed as the first-team coach back in 2015.

• Part 3 — Early Days at RFEF

Rubiales would start his presidential run off by sacking men’s head-coach Julen Lopetegui after only being in charge for a month. Julen was sacked in the middle of the 2018 Word Cup as he had reached an agreement to take over Real Madrid after the tournament. Spain went on to get knocked out by Russia in the round of 16.

Lopetegui was sacked immediately because of a pre-agreement after the tournament was over — meanwhile Vilda has now ruled over the Spanish women’s national team for 8 years despite various behavioral complaints from players, and overall underwhelming sporting results.

Makes you think…

• Part 4 — The Architect

In 2019, Yasmina Eid-Mached (the lead-architect for Rubiales’ house renovation plans) called out the “AFE” president for corruption and assault, leading back to 2017. He had supposedly told her team to “Send the renovation costs (€120,000+) to AFE” while he was still working there.

That wasn’t all though, as Rubiales was also said to have pushed the architect aggressively while "grabbing her arm” following a dispute regarding the work done on his house.

Yasmina said she suffered injuries to her rips and wrists, as-well as struggling with PTSD following the event.

A year after, in 2020 the case was ultimately dropped by the court though based insufficient evidence.

After the final verdict, Luis Rubiales took the opportunity to claim that the architect had only made up these accusations to “harass him and his underage daughters”.

Later that year (2020) RFEF held their presidential elections again, and this time Iker Casillas was Luis Rubiales biggest threat. Inexplicably though, Casillas decided to drop his campaign and Luis Rubiales would be re-elected as the RFEF president for another four, long years.

• Part 5 — The Saudi Supercopa

In April of 2022, Luis Rubiales and Gerard Piqué worked together in order to take the Spanish Supercup to Saudi Arabia, with financial gain as the main priority.

This deal would see RFEF signing a €40M deal with Sela (a Saudi Arabian company) for each Spanish Supercup that would be played there. Saudi Arabia and Kosmos (Piqué’s marketing agency) were set to receive a commission of €4 million per tournament, while RFEF would pocket €6 million.

Some other details of the deal:

• Barcelona and Real Madrid were to receive substantially more money than the other participating teams.

• If neither Barcelona or Real Madrid participate in the tournament, there will be a penalty fee included.

• Luis Rubiales promised to conceale Pique’s involvement in the process.

The “Saudi Supercopa” wasn’t the only controversial and potentially corrupt subject discussed between Rubiales and Piqué though.

In 2019, “CF Reus” were relegated due to administrative issues, and their spot in Segunda B (3rd tier) was put up for sale. Piqué’s Andorra ended up purchasing their spot, despite being scheduled to play 4th division that season. Obviously a lot of teams saw this as unfair and appealed the purchase, but it fell on deaf ears as Luis Rubiales and RFEF didn’t bother giving it any further consideration, and instead just used article 194 to defend themselves.

The Spanish and English explanations of RFEF’s article 194 can be read right here:

• Part 6 — Theft & Spying

In April of 2022 Luis Rubiales was accused of secretly using RFEF’s funds to pay the rent on his home in Madrid (sounds familiar…) — and in May, he was said to have recorded “compromising conversations and phone calls” with members of government (dating all the way back to his election run in 2018).

Rubiales of course denied both of these claims, only stating that “Parties with an interest are behind these accusations”.

• Part 7 — “RFEF Funded Orgy”

In September 2022 big allegations would come out against Luis Rubiales, this time from his own uncle, Juan Rubiales.

Juan stated that Luis would host private parties (usually in a sexual nature) using a large cabin in the Granada region. There would usually be around 10 girls present, amongst Rubiales himself and his closest board-members.

The girls would be paid under the pretense of attending a “work event”, and both their pay and the cabin expenses would be money taken straight from the federation according to Juan Rubiales.

Juan Rubiales also explained how his nephew would “Hire private investigators to follow David Aganzo (head of the AFE from 2018 to 2021) in order to find ways of getting money out of the federation.

The investigators following Aganzo were also supposedly paid for by a law firm which was contracted by the RFEF.

• Part 8 — Las 15

Later that September, a bombshell would drop into RFEF’s email inbox as the three Spain captains — Alexia Putellas, Patri Guijarro and Irene Paredes would write a private, internal letter on behalf of the squad expressing their displeasure with the federation.

Their displeasure was not just a result of many years with disappointing sporting results, but even more importantly it was about the poor treatment the squad had received from their “leader” Jorge Vilda and RFEF alike.

Their complaints were:

• Lack of privacy — Jorge Vilda among other things infamously prohibited players to lock their hotel-room doors while on national team duty with Spain.

• Lack of rest — As Jorge Vilda would rarely rotate resulting in players quickly being burnt out.

• Lack of medical assistance — RFEF would not invest properly into the Spanish WNT, causing injuries to be commonplace.

• Lack of nutritionists — Yet again a case of RFEF not prioritizing the WNT by not supplying the basic needs for top-level athletes.

• Lack of match analysis and tactical understanding by the coaching staff

• Low quality training sessions — As players reported to have been in a worse physical shape when returning to their respective clubs after having been on NT duty.

Some of their complaints were aimed more towards Vilda and his behavior which has clearly affected their mental health badly — while other points were aimed towards RFEF who didn’t provide the players with the equipment and facilities necessary to compete with others as a top athlete.

The Spanish women’s team felt like they had been deprioritized for far too long.

Despite the seriousness of the complaints, the squad wouldn’t even get a proper response from Luis Rubiales and the Spanish football federation, sadly.

Weeks would go by with no real answers, no action taken and no changes made internally by RFEF. They practically ignored all of it.

All of this wouldn’t stay as a private matter for long though as despite their inability to give the players a clear answer privately, Rubiales & RFEF had no problem making a big public statement about the situation where they denounced any and all criticism, while expressing their full support towards Jorge Vilda and threatening the players with a 5 year ban from the national team.

To add insult to injury, in RFEF’s reckless statement they implied that the players were blackmailing them by “applying pressure to the federation”.

Luis Rubiales also stated that the players should “Recognise their mistakes and ask for forgiveness” if they ever wanted to come back to the Spanish national team.

After the statement by RFEF and the words from Rubiales, the players were now being labeled as “blackmailers” by media and many supporter-groups alike.

Many of the players had simply had enough, and on the 23rd of September 2022 — 15 Spanish national team players posted an open letter to the federation.

Here is their full letter:

Letter #1 — Spanish (Original)
Letter #2 — English (Translated)
Letter #3 — German (Translated)
Letter #4 — French (Translated)

This letter resulted in many of the players being excluded from the Spanish national team squad, with some still refusing to play for the team to this day.

Some of the players would later return to national team duty as “Certain changes had been made by RFEF”. As for those who did return though, it was clear from the beginning that the situation is still far from ideal and rather just a temporary solution to be able to play the WWC.

• Part 9 — The 2023 WWC Final

The upgrades in equipment, facilities and sports-technology given by RFEF towards the women’s team ahead of the 23’ World Cup definitely helped them as they went on to win their very first WWC title — but the Spanish pride would be short lived as Luis Rubiales did several inappropriate things during the post-final celebrations.

First he weirdly carried Real Madrid attacker Athenea del Castillo over his shoulder, before going over to kiss the match-winner Olga Carmona on the cheek.

As uncomfortable as those two situations are though, things would get worse. In the incredibly special and memorable moment when Spain received their first ever WWC medals, president Rubiales grabbed Jenni Hermoso’s head and kissed her on the lips in front of all her team-mates on live TV.

It wouldn’t end here though as Rubiales was later seen grabbing his crotch when celebrating towards the Spanish team as they lifted the World Cup trophy. All this while standing next to Queen Letizia of Spain, and her 16 y/o daughter Sofía.

• Part 10 — The Aftermath

Following the disturbing circus put on by Rubiales, Jennifer Hermoso appeared on Instagram live during the celebrations in the locker rooms, saying: “I really didn’t like that” — before one of the staff in the background is heard asking “Did he use tongue?”

Shortly after all of this went down, RFEF sent out this text to several media outlets claiming it was Jenni Hermoso’s words:

"The kiss was a totally spontaneous, mutual gesture due to the immense joy of winning a World Cup. The president and I have a great relationship, his behaviour towards all of us has been a 10 out of 10 and it was a natural gesture of affection and gratitude. We can't think any more about a gesture of gratitude, we won a World Cup and we're not going to deviate from what's important."

In reality, Jennifer never said any of this. It was a completely made up message by RFEF in an attempt at downplaying and sugarcoating the entire situation.

This would be confirmed further a few days later when Jennifer herself posted a statement via her union “FUTPRO”:

“Following the events that occurred during the medal ceremony of the recent FIFA Women's World Cup, our affiliate, Jennifer Hermoso, wishes to state the following:”

“My union FUTPRO, together with my agency TMJ, are in charge of defending me in this matter. We express our firm and resounding condemnation of behaviors that violate the dignity of women.”

“We ask RFEF to implement the necessary protocols to both ensure the rights of our players, and take exemplary measures. It is essential that our team, the current World Champions, is always represented by figures who project values ​​of equality and respect in all areas.”

“It’s necessary to continue the fight for equality, a fight which women’s players have led with determination. That has lead us to the position in which we find ourselves today.”

“We also call on the Higher Sports Council so that, within it’s powers, it actively supports and promotes prevention & intervention against sexual harassment, abuse and/or sexism.”

“We reject any attitude or action that violates the rights of footballers. From the union we are working so that acts like the ones we’ve just seen never go unpunished, are sanctioned and the pertinent measures are taken to further protect our footballers.”

The following day (24th of August), media outlets all over Spain received “leaks” that Luis Rubiales would resign from his position on the 25th. The leaks were most likely on purpose, and you’ll understand why shortly.

The 25th came around, and Luis Rubiales started his press conference knowing all eyes were on him after yesterday’s media speculations about him resigning.

So, what did he do? He doubled down on everything and said said “No voy a dimitir!” (I will not resign!) five times into the microphone, just to be met by a round of applause from the audience consisting of 99% male RFEF employees.

It’s always easy to be confident in your words with home advantage like that.

Luis Rubiales pulls out his victim card and continues the press-conference by saying:

— “Jenni was the one who lifted me up”

— “I said to her ‘A little kiss?’ and she said ‘OK’. It was a spontaneous kiss. Mutual, euphoric and consensual.

— “A consensual kiss is enough to kick me out of here? No. I will fight until the end.”

— “This situation is being pushed by the media and feminism”

— “I apologize, but unreservedly as I don’t deserve this manhunt I have been suffering”

After this tasteless press conference, the general footballing world has now started to finally realize what kind of man Luis Rubiales really is — with players, national teams and clubs all over the world expressing their support for Jennifer Hermoso.

The circus doesn’t stop here though, as RFEF announced today that they’ll take legal action and sue Jennifer Hermoso for “lying” about the non-consensual kiss.

The entire Spanish women’s national team has now publicly stated that they will NOT play another match until Rubiales resigns, with many Spanish men’s players saying that they also refuse to represent Spain and RFEF while Luis is still in charge.

• Part 11 — Conclusion

Luis Rubiales should be nowhere near any position of power, because he has shown time and time again that he can and will abuse it. As FIFA has just suspended him today, it’s looking like his time with RFEF is slowly coming to an end, finally.

Unfortunately though, it’s clear that there are still a lot of structural problems deeply rooted within RFEF. Many of these issues sadly won’t disappear with the departure of Rubiales. RFEF was corrupt before him when Ángel Villar was in charge, and it’ll probably be corrupt after him as-well if proper, structural action isn’t taken.

End of thread. Thanks for reading.
#SeAcabó #RubialesDimision