Valladolid owner Ronaldo welcomes investigation into La Liga match-fixing

Brazil legend Ronaldo has welcomed the investigation into match-fixing in La Liga, where he is majority shareholder of Real Valladolid.

Former club captain Borja Fernandez was arrested in the probe, dubbed Operation Oikos, which has seen 10 arrests made surrounding allegations of impropriety in several games during the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons in both the Primera and Segunda divisions in Spain.

Those arrested are accused of money-laundering, bribery and corruption, and association with a criminal organisation. The president of Huesca, Agustin Lasaosa is accused alongside Fernandez, who quit the game after failing to make much of an impression with Valladolid in the most recent La Liga season.

Despite his club’s player potentially being implicated in the scandal, Ronaldo said that the team would cooperate with any investigation.

“[I hope] Borja was not involved at all,” the former Real Madrid great told AS.

“But, in any case, I think it’s good that it’s investigated because we should all want for there to be no corruption.

“Look, I’m from Brazil and over there we’ve got a tremendous amount of corruption. We support the investigation, we’ll do everything to collaborate and we’ll provide all the information we have.”

Despite his willingness to collaborate, and the interviews police conducted on Wednesday with key witnesses, Ronaldo said the club had not yet been contacted.

“Nobody has called us yet,” the 42-year-old continued.

“I haven’t been able to speak to Borja, or anyone. We can’t do anything more than wait for all this to be cleared up.”

The former player, nicknamed ‘O fenomeno’ [The Phenomenon] during a storied career insisted the scandal would not rub the gloss of a fantastic season for Valladolid.

Ronaldo took over as majority shareholder in September 2018 after the team had won promotion back to the Primera Division after a four-year absence.

They were in danger of an immediate return to the second tier all the way until the penultimate round of fixtures.

A 2-1 away win over Rayo Vallecano ensured their survival, eventually finishing 16th.

Ronaldo said the whole city was celebrating their success.

“After everything we’ve gone through this season, we’re still on cloud nine.”