The way Luis Rubiales remembers it, the last song dedicated to him in a football stadium ran: “Baldy bastard, what’s the score?” It was August 2009; the man who will be sitting at Wembley on Saturday night, president of the Spanish Football Federation, was playing at centre-back for Hamilton Academical; and the score, Ibrox knew, was 4-1. It was the third game of the season but at the end of it, Rubiales appeared in the press room – “wood panelled, smelling of football from another era” – and announced he was retiring.
It had nothing to do with the result, and he had enjoyed the afternoon. He already knew he was going, his father watching him for the last time from the stands, listening to the ‘serenade’. On the pitch, Rubiales Jr went off on a dribble, which wasn’t his thing but it was the last time, so why not? “I also had a set-to with their captain, which was fun,” he grins. “They named me Accies’ man of the match. And then I went into the press room, said I was retiring and everyone was like …”
Rubiales starts laughing. “They thought it was a bit weird.” He had played three league games and one in the cup; it was the day after his 32nd birthday; he was still in good shape and he had a contract. But he walked away, refusing to be paid beyond his last day, because calls from Spain asked him to help sought out a “mess”. Rubiales had been through bankruptcy and administration before, leading a Levante squad that had gone unpaid and unprotected; now all-too-many others were facing the same crisis and wanted his help.
He left having made less impact on Scotland than Scotland had on him, and he talks about “an atmosphere there that still reflects the roots of football”. In Spain the problems were serious; he returned and began a process that led him to the presidency of the Spanish Players’ Union. In May 2018 he won elections to the presidency of the Spanish FA, after almost 30 years under the former Fifa vice-president Ángel María Villar, who was arrested on suspicion of embezzlement. Villar denies wrongdoing.
Rubiales hadn’t even been in charge for a month when he was told that the Spain manager Julen Lopetegui was going to Real Madrid – five minutes before Madrid made the announcement public and two days before the World Cup. The following day, he sacked his coach. It was some start. “I tried to act with honesty, according to our ethics. There’s no point in going back over it; we’re in the Luis Enrique era, and I’m convinced that we’re going to be very proud of the team.”
It’s an era that begins at Wembley. Hours before the game, Rubiales will step on to the pitch right foot first and will cross himself just like he always did. “Football is the staging of a battle with rules and those of us who have been ‘warriors’ don’t like to lose the smell of that,” he says, so he maintains a player’s routine before heading to the directors’ box.
Theirs is an image that must change, he says. “A lot of damage has been done [by the former regime at Fifa and the RFEF]. The situation is difficult, but while we must distance ourselves from that we must also afford them the presumption of innocence. What we have done is impose new rules, external checks, audits, commissions, regulations to protect integrity and transparency.
“I’m in love with football and when you’re in love you tend to cover up defects but as a president you can’t. Football itself, the actual game, is a healthy sport. As for what’s around it, there are some elements I don’t like.”
Saturday’s visit to Wembley raises a contrast with Spain, where there is no national stadium. “It’s a lovely concept, but it’s not viable: we can’t spend hundreds of millions on a stadium like Wembley to use it so few times,” he says. “And there’s another question which is even more important: Spain belongs to all Spaniards; we have to take it all around the country.”
At least if there was a stadium, they wouldn’t have the tedious annual argument about where the Copa del Rey final is played. “We won’t anyway,” Rubiales shoots back. “We’re going to open up a bidding process so that stadiums over 45,000 can ask to hold it in two-year cycles.”
It would have helped too with this summer’s Spanish Super Cup, which the RFEF took to Tangiers. Some were angered but Rubiales claims he had little choice given the late obligation to play it over one leg, not two, and rejects comparisons to the league’s plan to take a match to Miami – announced without consultation with the federation, players’ union, clubs or fans’ groups.
“Javier Tebas [the president of La Liga] spoke to everyone except the people he had to speak to,” Rubiales says. “It’s a total lack of respect, unfaithful and incomprehensible. This president demands a lot from others when his own behaviour frankly leaves a lot to be desired. We’ve not had even a single call. I haven’t seen the contract, so I can’t say much but I will say this: the Fifa president protects domestic competition and taking competition somewhere else represents an invasion of that country. He has totally ignored the players and even the clubs, signing a contract with a private country for ten or fifteen years. His behaviour was terrible, but very much like Javier Tebas: very much lacking in respect.”
Tebas gave a six-point response in which he noted that non-US teams play in MLS, that this was a single game in 380 and that the agreement with Relevent Sports does not oblige the league to play a game in the US, only that it would attempt to do so and that no clubs would be forced to participate. “La Liga is perfectly conscious of that fact that to play in the US, it needs the authorisation of the US Federation,” Tebas said. “The RFEF president knows of our intention to play a game in abroad because we told him that as a result of the game in Tangier.”
Rubiales insists: “[Tebas] does this with everything. Put bluntly, he’s rude. He has signed an agreement that it is not up to him to sign. What he has signed is worthless. It means nothing without our authorisation, so we’ll see what happens to this game.”
The Guardian Sport
