Updated:
Save
One of the names that have appeared in the controversial commercial link between Luis Rubiales, president of the Football Federation, and Gerard Piqué, emblem of Barcelona and commissioner in the Super Cup through his company Kosmos, is Ana Muñoz Merino, former vice president integrity and ethics of the federative body. Muñoz, who declined to make statements to ABC, was one of the few people in the Federation who did not agree with Piqué’s mediation in the gestation of the new Super Cup. She resigned in December 2019, a few weeks after the deal with Saudi Arabia was made public, although her job list as head of a new department in the football nerve center had been very restricted and almost empty of content.
Rubiales referred yesterday to Ana Muñoz in her speech to the press. «I respect Ana, she was here, worked his way, there was some conflict, but decided to leave and had nothing to do with the Super Cup. He did a professional job that we appreciate, not because of problems with the ethics report of the Super Cup, which was favorable».
Muñoz, who is a professor of financial law, and was director of the Spanish Anti-Doping Agency and general director of the Higher Sports Council (number two in the body), inquired about Gerard Piqué’s contract. In a board of directors chaired by Rubiales, she required the written agreement in its entirety for her department to review. He claimed to know the content because he understood that it generated a conflict of interest contrary to the code of ethics of the Federation and FIFA. The request was unsuccessful and the former vice president complained by email to the secretary general, Andreu Camps. That email has appeared now, almost three years later, in the information revealed by ‘El Confidencial’.
Muñoz became vice-president of the Federation after leaving the Higher Sports Council and at the request of Luis Rubiales, who in the first instance offered her the general secretary of the organization and, given the refusal of the professor, later proposed her to direct the new department of integrity and ethics, which had never existed in the years of the Federation’s life.
As ABC has learned, the trigger for the conflicts that Rubiales alluded to yesterday was a proposal of sanction to Busquets, one of the Barcelona captains who, according to the Federation’s integrity area, had gone too far in his criticism of the referees, another body that depends on Rubiales and his board. The president became extremely angry at a meeting on December 16, 2019 and before his managers he reprimanded Muñoz for an upcoming transcendental match for Barcelona and the possible sanction of Busquets.
Another of the matters in which Rubiales and Muñoz collided was that of Andreu Subiés, former president of the Catalan Football Federation, who was arrested on October 30, 2018 by the Civil Guard accused of corrupt actions in his own favor with funds from the institution . Subiés was accused of crimes of unfair administration, misappropriation, corruption between individuals and false documents. According to the summary of his case, several budget items were approved aimed at reforming the headquarters of the Catalan federation in Barcelona, Tarragona, Sabadell and Vilafranca del Penedès. According to the Civil Guard investigation, Subies would have diverted funds from these budgets for private purposesrelated to a family restaurant and his own home.
In the board of directors of the Federation held to deal with this case, only Ana Muñoz voted in favor of Subiés resigning from his positions.
In his work at the forefront of integrity and ethics, Muñoz Merino promoted the Oikos operation, upon receiving an alert from UEFA in his betting indicators for possible fraud. The operation revealed a plot in which Raúl Bravo and Carlos Aranda had been fixing matches for years football for profit in bets, according to the investigations of the security forces.
Ana Muñoz, who left in the winter of 2019, has expressed herself on social networks. «No one can say on my behalf why I resigned, let alone why I didn’t.. I am the only owner of my silences, and responsible, always, for my words and my actions».
See them
comments
