Luis Rubiales’ presidency of the Royal Spanish Football Federation is facing fresh financial scrutiny over a media platform allegedly created to defend him and answer criticism of his administration.
El Confidencial reports that federation funds were used to establish the platform, which was intended to publish Rubiales’ views and respond to opponents during his time as president.
The newspaper says a well-known publishing house was contracted to create the project, with the Royal Spanish Football Federation agreeing to pay up to €1.6m, according to payment receipts obtained by El Confidencial.
The contract was signed on 22 October 2022, less than a year before Rubiales left the federation.
Payments totalling €700,000 have already been made. The courts are expected to order the federation to pay at least a further €600,000, potentially taking the total cost of the project beyond €1.3m even though the official who signed the agreement has since departed.
Rubiales rejected the newspaper’s account in a video posted on his Instagram account. He denied that the federation had funded a propaganda platform and said the initiative was designed to distribute sports content rather than promote him personally.
“You may have seen how the journalist Chema Olmo, from El Confidencial, presented it as a scandal, claiming that the federation, during my presidency, allocated €700,000 to create a propaganda platform or something similar,” Rubiales said. “That is completely untrue.”
He said the project had been developed by the federation’s media, medical and legal departments, among others, working together with professionals who had tens of thousands of subscribers.
“What the federation did was create a platform to publish content not only about football, but about sport in general and its different disciplines,” he added. “It seems that this has upset him.”
Rubiales also said the federation had taken legal action against the company after a dispute over unpaid sums following his departure.
“The judge decided that this was the market price and, of course, everything was completely legal,” he said. “But that does not seem to matter to the journalist.”
The former president then compared the case with payments he said La Liga made to media organisations in 2023.
“The €36m that Javier Tebas spent in 2023, using La Liga’s money on different media outlets, is apparently not a scandal for him,” Rubiales said. “Many people might consider that a scandal. We are talking about €36m, and he did not even mention it in any post.”
The dispute reopens scrutiny of Rubiales’ leadership of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, which was marked by controversy on sporting, financial and media issues.
El Confidencial maintains that the platform served as a publicity vehicle for Rubiales rather than an independent media project. Rubiales insists it was a legal and professional initiative intended to support Spanish sport, with the courts expected to decide whether further payments are due.
