A total of 90 of the Spanish football assembly members out of 138 who voted have elected Galician Rafael Louzán, sentenced to seven years of disqualification for prevarication, as the new president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) for the 2024-2028 Olympic cycle. The Galician baron is pending the appeal he presented to the Supreme Court, which will address the issue on February 5. The election of Louzán ahead of the Valencian Salvador Gomar, who obtained 43 votes (there were also one invalid and four blank), once again puts the federation on the brink of the abyss and of international embarrassment.
The uncertainty generated by Louzán’s victory is maximum because he is also considering disqualifying the new federation boss soon. The body chaired by José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes plans to file a complaint with the Sports Administrative Court (TAD) for non-compliance with the statutes of the RFEF in its articles 19.4 and 24. The first, referring to the requirements to be part of the governing bodies. federal government, establishes as a condition “not being disqualified from holding public office.” This has not prevented Louzán from running for office, but it does deny him access to government bodies. The president of the federation is also the president of the Assembly and the Delegate Commission. Article 24 has to do with the cessation of office for any person affected by the restrictions of 19.
If the CSD’s complaint to the TAD is consummated, after the cases of Ángel María Villar. Luis Rubiales and Pedro Rocha. The majority of the territorial barons and LaLiga, with its president Javier Tebas at the helm, have decided to ignore what Louzán’s triumph means in terms of reputational image for the federation and Spanish football. His victory is a challenge for the policy undertaken by the CSD to try to regenerate and cleanse the image of the most important federation in Spanish sports. Only five days after, together with Morocco and Portugal, the federation is once again surrounded by the focus of uncertainty and corruption. Louzán prevaricated when he was president of the Provincial Council of Pontevedra for the Popular Party in granting a subsidy of 93,000 euros to remodel the Moraña stadium.
The fact that Louzán’s crime was committed in a matter that has to do with the football sector has not been an impediment for him to win these elections, which have had their share of Berlanguian farce. As expected, the third candidate, Sergio Merchán from Extremadura, has refused to appear an hour and a half before voting begins. To Merchan, Louzán gave 23 of his endorsements to replace him in case the CSD prevented him from appearing. It was also part of the clamp to prevent Gomar or an external candidate from meeting the minimum of 21 endorsements required to present a candidacy. A hypothetical Merchán presidency would have been as bizarre as it was Kafkaesque. Merchán’s pantomime offers a vision of the descalzaperros and the quagmire in which the federative world of Spanish football moves. Merchán brought together signs intrinsic to the so-called straw rulers. He could have been the first president of the federation without barely having picked up the phone to amass endorsements and votes, without presenting a program and without speaking to the press.
Louzán now clings to the same motto as his disqualified predecessors, “Spanish football has chosen me.” The question, once again, is whether the barons and the rest of the assembly members who have elected him without caring about what their decision entails are the worthy representation of Spanish football. They had the opportunity to carry out an examination of conscience and have chosen a candidate who was not as marked as Louzán, but they have preferred to once again put the federation on the brink of the precipice.
