History of an ill-fated plot: “Rubiales is like a fucking goat”

It was a couple of minutes after eight thirty in the afternoon of January 25 when lawyer Tomás González Cueto, who at that time was still external legal advisor to the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), telephoned a woman named Sandra. González Cueto, who was unaware that the Civil Guard had intervened a few days before his communications within Operation Brodie, was honest with his interlocutor and charged against the then former president of the organization Luis Rubiales, of whom he had been his right-hand man for years. .

González Cueto:

When he goes around, all he wants to do is hit me. He has not planned to work, but rather to hit... but not 15 or 20,000 euros, but 200,000 or more, you know?, because he says that he needs 100,000 euros a month. It's just that he says some things. Seriously, he's like a fucking goat.

Sandra:

Well, I told you from the beginning, I have never liked this man.

Less than two months after that conversation, on March 20, the Central Operational Unit (UCO) detained González Cueto in an operation that already totaled nine arrests - among them that of Rubiales, on Wednesday at the Adolfo Suárez Airport in Madrid after landing from the Dominican Republic― and half a dozen more investigated. The head of the Court of First Instance and Instruction 4 of Majadahonda (Madrid), Delia Rodrigo, investigates them as alleged members of a plot that supposedly looted the RFEF during the Rubiales presidency (2018-2023) through the alleged rigging of contracts, among They include the remodeling of the La Cartuja stadium in Seville, carried out in 2021, or the one that has taken the Spanish Super Cup matches to Saudi Arabia. During the investigation, wiretapping revealed that those allegedly involved, once Rubiales resigned on September 10 after being prosecuted for the non-consensual kiss of Jennifer Hermoso, was in reality a hostile group in which misgivings, disagreements and reproaches proliferated.

González Cueto is one of those who most openly shows these distrusts in his conversations. On February 21, he assured a person by phone that he had been with the former president of the federation in the Dominican Republic and that he had had “a small altercation with him.” “It's like Machín's maracas,” says his interlocutor, who was none other than Alejandro Blanco, president of the Spanish Olympic Committee and a solid pillar of support for Rubiales. The lawyer explains the reason for the incident: “He told me to do something that was illegal and I couldn't do it to him and I told him [...], It's scary what we've all risked ourselves with at the time.” On another occasion, González Cueto, to whom researchers attribute great power in the federation due to his closeness to Rubiales, once again criticizes his obsession with money when talking about a project in Saudi Arabia: “And the first thing he says is that he wants a kilo [million euros] for himself […] He is going to give the blow and people can't stand him anymore, they can't tolerate him anymore.”

The conversations intercepted in Rubiales also reveal this deterioration of his relations with his former trusted man. “Tomás [González Cueto], when he joined the Federation with me, he had an office with six lawyers and now he has an office with twenty-something lawyers. He had an office that invoiced 500,000 euros and now he has an office that invoices three million euros,” he assures an interlocutor. The lawyer himself admits in another conversation that economic dependence on the RFEF and laments: "If I had an analogous economic alternative, I would leave the federation."

This bad relationship that arose between Rubiales and González Cueto is not the only one among those allegedly involved that has emerged during the investigation. Ángel González Segura, director of Gruconsa - the construction company allegedly benefiting from the rigging in the federation - and brother of Pedro González Segura, director of legal services of the federation until the arrests took place, shows on numerous occasions his bad relationship with Francisco Javier Martín Alcalde, alias

Nene

, a former player who never rose above the third step of Spanish football and who, after leaving the ball, became a businessman and established an intimate relationship with Rubiales that included joint businesses.

Ángel González charges against both during a call he made to an associate on March 1, 20 days before being arrested. In it, he criticizes that Nene had demanded that he charge a commission for the award of the contract to reform, for 1.3 million euros, the federation's Football City in Las Rozas (Madrid) when Rubiales had already left office. “Look how smart they are. Nene is already there trying... but let's see, Nene, if you are... neither you nor Rubiales can be seen there," he tells his interlocutor, who asks him if he is finally going to give him A commission. “I, what the hell am I going to pay him,” he concludes.

The Gruconsa manager also shows contempt towards Rubiales. Thus, in a call to his wife on February 27, he comments that everyone is tired of the former president because he continues to demand from people as if he were still in charge of the RFEF when, in reality, he is a “ zero on left". In several previous calls, at the end of January, in which the manager discusses with his brother Pedro the project of building a football stadium, a sports city and a hotel in Saudi Arabia, he emphasizes that neither Rubiales nor Nene have played any role in that business. “These two artists are the ones who paint the least,” he assures him, despite which he admits that possibly in the end they will be paid something: “If this comes out, there is money for everyone.”

Ángel González's criticism reaches his own brother, whom he accuses during a conversation with a partner of not making any "management" to obtain a contract for the 2030 World Cup, which Spain, Portugal and Morocco will co-organize: "They have already "He has passed a few in front of him and those around him are smarter and they all try, and this one is always catching flies and then he complains."

The only ones who seem to have a good relationship are Rubiales and Nene. In the conversation in which he explains to a third party that he is going to acquire a hotel in the Dominican Republic for 16.8 million together with local partners, he details that his friend will also participate in the business. “In my 50% I will say who comes in because I have Luis [Rubiales], for example, I have the prisoner with me and he is living there, I have to put him in.” By then, Rubiales had not only lost economic capacity. Since he stopped being president of the federation, those who had been faithful allies such as the territorial presidents or collaborators had abandoned him. The same betrayal that his predecessor, Ángel María Villar, suffered.

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