Football
9y

Spanish FA fires back in row with government, La Liga

#INSERT type:image caption:The latest Spanish institutional row has pitted La Liga president Javier Tebas against the Spanish FA and the government.END#

Spain's secretary of state for sport has been accused of abuse of power and "not telling the truth" as the bitter row between Spanish FA president Miguel Angel Villar and the Spanish government rumbles on.

The latest noisy institutional row to hit Spanish football has pitted Villar against both Spain's secretary of state for sport Miguel Cardenal and La Liga president Javier Tebas, and springs from a push by the Madrid government to detail exactly how all state funding received by the federation is spent.

The Spanish FA [RFEF] last week claimed to be the victims of "excessive interventionism" and even wrote to FIFA and UEFA asking for Cardenal to be removed from all international football committees. Cardenal has claimed that there are no personal issues involved, and his primary concern is that all the country's laws are followed.

The most recent shots fired came in an RFEF statement released on Monday headlined: "Miguel Cardenal is not telling the truth," which said all the federations accounts and agreements were fully audited.

"The RFEF has always complied with the Ley del Deporte 10/90 in a scrupulous manner, and their accounts have revised by the auditors sent by the Sports Council, who received all the documentation asked for including free access to accounts, contracts, agreements and documentation and information on the accounts for the term 2013," the statement said.

The statement went on to accuse Cardenal of "abusing the law and his power" and deliberately damaging the image of Spanish football by "not telling the truth."

"The RFEF considers that the attitude of the secretary of state is abusing the law and his power, using unjustly information from the accounts, leaking with bad intentions and aiming to seriously damage the image of the RFEF and thereby Spanish football," it said. "For all that has been shown, it is clearly shown that the Secretary of State has not told the truth."

Cardenal again replied by saying in AS that the audit submitted by the Spanish FA had included exceptions, which meant that it remained unclear how all public money was being spent.

"The FEF has not justified its grants destined for pitches, so must reclaim this public money," Cardenal said. "And two, in the RFEF statement at least 10 exceptions are either excluded or changed. It is very rare for audited accounts to have so many exceptions. All the expenses must be included in the audit."

Cardenal, who previously served on internal RFEF committees before taking his current position, said he saw "maliciousness" in the position of his former colleagues, and invited Villar to debate the issues in public.

The row has seen the government subvention received by the RFEF fall this year from 2.9 million euros to 370,000 euros. Angered by this Villar has reportedly threatened that all games -- including in the Primera Division -- will feature protests taking the form of minute-long pauses in the action should Cardenal not be removed from his position quickly.

Such internal divisions and personality clashes mean that joined-up action on the various issues facing Spanish football is often difficult to achieve. For example, in the aftermath of a Deportivo La Coruna fan dying during violence before a game at Atletico Madrid last November, Villar pointedly refused to take part in meetings called by Cardenal to deal with the matter. Subsequent moves by Tebas and the LFP authorities to remove all "ultras" and radical groups from Spanish stadiums have also not been supported by Villar and the RFEF.

Villar is long-term ally of both UEFA president Michel Platini and FIFA president Blatter. He has been RFEF president since 1988. The ex-Athletic Bilbao player has sometimes mentioned in speculation as a possible successor to Platini as UEFA chief, and in March 2013 was even put forward by Blatter himself as a potential future FIFA president.

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