The president of the Higher Sports Council since last July, Víctor Francos, has announced his resignation from office this Thursday. “Today, I wish to announce my resignation from the position of president of the CSD, a thoughtful decision for professional reasons,” he wrote in a statement. Francos, who replaced José Manuel Franco in the position five months ago, has assured that this is “a personal decision to start a new professional challenge”.
Francos leaves office with a multitude of extremely important folders open. The most urgent has to do with the publication of the Ministerial Order that will serve as the basis for the election of a new president of the RFEF. A text whose final publication in the BOE is being delayed due to the more than 1,400 pages of allegations received from the parties involved, a volume above what was expected.
In the coming months, in addition to the electoral process to designate a definitive successor to Luis Rubiales at the head of the Football Federation, the CSD must finish tying up the details of the 2030 World Cup, which Spain will organize together with Portugal and Morocco, in addition to finalizing the details for the great sporting event of 2024, the Paris Olympic Games.
In fact, this bulky agenda was one of the arguments of the Minister of Education and Sports, Pilar Alegría, to keep Francos in office, despite the fact that he was a man of Iceta’s full confidence. The Aragonese minister was determined to maintain her trust in him, at least in the short and medium term, but now she will have to look for another person to lead the CSD.
As Francos details in his statement, Alegría knew of his desire to close his time at the head of the CSD, although the minister herself endorsed him at the head of Spanish sport after inheriting that matter, until now under the mandate of Culture (Miquel Iceta), after the formation of a new Government less than a month ago, on November 20.
Government sources reiterate to this newspaper that It is exclusively a “personal decision”, with the aim of starting “a new professional challenge”. “He entered the CSD with a Government in office and has decided to take advantage of a new opportunity that has been presented to him at a professional level coinciding with the beginning of a new legislature,” these same sources detail. From outside politics, he points to a strong economic proposal from the private sector as the trigger for his sudden and surprising resignation.
Francos’ passage through the CSD
Francos came to office after his predecessor, Franco, was appointed head of the Madrid PSOE list for the Senate in the last general elections. The Catalan politician had until then been general secretary of the Ministry of Culture and Sports and had the endorsement of having defused the crisis with LaLiga in the final procedures for the approval of the Sports Law.
Considered in various circles as a man close to Real Madrid and particularly to its president, Florentino PérezFrancos’ biggest challenge this semester has been managing the crisis caused by Luis Rubiales’ kiss to Jenni Hermoso in the Sydney World Cup final..
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Francos skated at first, assuming (like Iceta) that the TAD will allow the Government to suspend the now former president of the RFEF, but later, with Rubiales already gone, he channeled the situation, taking advantage of the rebellion of the world champions to force Pedro Rocha, president of the federation manager, to apply changes to the institution based in Las Rozas.
President of the CSD: an unstable position
Managing the final details of the bid for the 2030 World Cup has been another of the relevant points of his management at the head of the organization. A transition that always had the aroma of an interim, maintaining practically the same team that Franco had, and that has ended when it seemed most solid, endorsed even by Minister Alegría.