Rubiales rejects claims Spanish FA funded personal publicity project

Luis Rubiales has denied allegations that the Royal Spanish Football Federation used €700,000 to create a media platform designed to defend his presidency and answer critics.

The former Spanish FA president said the project was intended to publish football and wider sports content, rather than promote him personally. His comments follow a report by El Confidencial alleging that federation funds were used to establish a platform supporting Rubiales’ public position.

According to the newspaper, a well-known publishing house was contracted to create the platform. Payment documents obtained by El Confidencial show that the Royal Spanish Football Federation agreed to spend up to €1.6m on the project.

The contract was signed on 22 October 2022, less than a year before Rubiales left the federation. A total of €700,000 has so far been paid, while the courts are expected to order the organisation to pay at least a further €600,000.

That would take the eventual cost to more than €1.3m, despite the departure of the man who signed the agreement.

Rubiales responded in a video posted on his Instagram account, rejecting the description of the platform as a propaganda operation.

“You may have noticed how the journalist Chema Olmo, from El Confidencial, treated this as a scandal, claiming that the federation, during my presidency, allocated €700,000 to create a propaganda platform or something similar,” he said. “That is completely untrue.”

He said the project had been developed by the federation’s media, medical and legal departments, working together with professionals who had tens of thousands of subscribers.

“What the federation did was create a platform to publish not only football content but sport in general, across different areas,” Rubiales said. “It seems that this has upset him.”

Rubiales also insisted the arrangement was lawful and commercially justified. He said the federation had taken legal action involving the company after a claim over unpaid sums following his departure, and that a judge had ruled the cost represented the market rate.

“Everything is completely legal, of course,” he said. “But that does not seem to matter to the journalist.”

The former president then compared the reported spending with payments he said La Liga made to various media organisations in 2023.

“The €36m that Javier Tebas spent in 2023, from La Liga’s money, on different media outlets is not considered a scandal by him,” Rubiales said. “Many people might consider that a scandal. We are talking about €36m, and he did not even mention it in any post.”

The controversy adds to the scrutiny surrounding Rubiales’ time in charge of the Spanish federation, which was marked by disputes involving sporting, financial and media matters.

While Rubiales maintains that the platform was a professional and legal project intended to serve Spanish sport, El Confidencial says it functioned as a publicity tool for the former president. Any further payment to the company is expected to be determined through the courts.