The Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) came to quadruple payments to Luis Rubiales and the members of his “senior management” between 2018 and 2021, as confirmed by the organization in the annual accounts published on its website and which have been consulted by this newspaper. They detail how 2018the year in which Rubiales succeeds Angel Maria Villar at the head of the RFEF, the remuneration (not only fixed salaries) to the president and the other three people who held the positions considered to be of maximum responsibility in the organization were 1.8 million euros. The amount of this expense item was escalating until it reached its maximum in 2021, when those payments came to touch the 7 million euros.
The people who made up that select group of “senior management” that the Federation speaks of in its own accounts are, in addition to Luis Rubiales himself, who has been temporarily suspended from his duties by FIFA, Andreu Camps, general secretary and considered the ‘ right hand’ of the president; Jose Francisco Molina, sports director who left his position in January 2023; and Luis Enrique Martinezthe men’s national coach who was dismissed in December 2022, in addition to Julen Lopetegui and Robert Moreno for a short time each.
In 2017 they were 975,000 euros
The change in the “top management” spending line during the years that Rubiales has been president has therefore been notable. Between 2018 and 2019, the remuneration for himself and his managers rose by 80%; between 2019 and 2020 another 30%; between 2020, the year of the pandemic, and 2021, 61.1%, and, yes, between 2021 and 2022 they fell by 25.4%. It is not possible to make a comparison with the 2017 financial year, Villar’s last full year, since within the 975,000 euros allocated to him and his “senior management” neither the men’s national coach nor the general secretary were included.
The increase in the remuneration of the so-called “senior management” of the RFEF has a certain reflection in the multiplication of the entity’s total income during this four-year period. Rubiales and his work team, thanks in part to the deal with Saudi Arabia to take the Super Cup there, it turned the 170 million euros of annual income of 2018 into 406 in 2022. The RFEF, in short, tripled the income while quadrupling the salaries of “senior management”.
The RFEF accounts do not detail how these millions of euros are distributed among their “senior management” nor the concept of these payments. There is talk of gross “compensation” and, in the case of the president, it is clearly specified that “does not receive from the Federation in a personal capacity any other amount for any other reason“.
It is not known what the 25.4% decrease in pay between 2021 and 2022 responds to, although it may be linked to the bonuses received by the technical managers: while in 2021 Spain reached the semifinals of the Eurocup, where they lost against Italy, in 2022 Luis Enrique’s team said goodbye to the World Cup in the round of 16 against Morocco.
Change in Rubiales’ salary
In 2022 Rubiales also decided to submit a change in its remuneration structure to the vote of the assembly. Until 2022, he received a fixed salary of 160,000 euros that increased with a variable conditional on income from sponsorships, consisting of 0.6% with a maximum of 0.175% of income. After receiving criticism for this remuneration model, he proposed to the Assembly (which gave him the go-ahead) consolidate as fixed thereafter the total amount that it had collected in 2021, €635,000. To that amount should be added the 250,000 euros that he charges from UEFA for his role as vice president, from which he has already been suspended, income free of charge to the RFEF.
With respect to Luis Enrique, who was the coach until the last World Cup in Qatar (with the exception of five months due to the illness and death of his daughter in 2019, being replaced by Robert Moreno), not only the fixed salary was not raised during those four years, but came to download it during the pandemic. He signed, as published by various media, for a salary of 1.5 million net and gave up 25% of the token (350,000 euros) in 2020 to show his commitment to the federation at a time when the coronavirus compromised the world of football.
Julen Lopetegui, His predecessor in charge and coach who was fired by Rubiales at the gates of the 2018 World Cup in Russia, charged practically the same, that is, 3 million euros gross. According to the accounts signed by the president, in 2018 the RFEF allocated 1.8 million gross to all members of the “senior management”, so that only with the fixed salary of the two selectors would that figure be exceeded. Asked by this newspaper, the federation did not want to explain its accounts.
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For his part, and as explained by the organization on its website, the ‘right hand’ of Rubiales and still general secretary of the RFEF, Andreu Camps, would charge 240,000 euros gross per year. Camps was, for example, in charge of requesting the UEFA performance in defense of the president of the RFEF after the actions taken by the Government of Spain as a result of the Jenni Hermoso case, which could have led to the exclusion of the men’s and women’s teams and the Spanish clubs from European competitions. As reported by THE SPANISH NEWSPAPERthe territorial barons have now asked the interim president, Pedro Rocha, to dismiss him, since he is considered a Rubiales man in the RFEF.
The only one who does not have a record of his salary, neither official nor estimated by the media, is Molina, sports director until last January since Fernando Hierro left office in 2018 after having to take over the bench of Spain during the World Cup in Russia. However, El Confidencial did assure in the middle of last year that the one who was a goalkeeper charged, for example, 6,300 euros per game played by the national teamalthough this would suppose a variable concept and not the base of his salary.