The newspaper "El Confidencial" has uncovered a fresh scandal from Rubiales's time as president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation. According to the report, the former president dipped into Federation funds to bankroll a propaganda platform, one used to push his opinions and hit back at critics of his leadership.
A well-known publishing house took on the job of building it. The Royal Spanish Football Federation, the paper alleges, agreed to pay up to 1.6 million euros, a figure backed by payment receipts El Confidencial has obtained. Both parties signed the contract on 22 October 2022, less than a year before Rubiales left the Federation.
Payments so far have hit 700,000 euros. The courts are expected to order the Federation to hand over at least another 600,000, pushing the final bill beyond 1.3 million euros, long after the man who signed the deal walked away.
Rubiales hit back fast. In a video posted to his Instagram account, the former president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation denied the Federation had financed any propaganda platform. He defended the project as a vehicle for sports content, not a personal propaganda tool.
"You may have noticed how the journalist Chema Olmo, from the newspaper El Confidencial, treated the matter as if it were a scandal, claiming that the Federation, during my presidency, allocated 700,000 euros to create a propaganda platform or something similar, which is completely untrue," Rubiales said in the video.
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He added: "What the Federation did, through its media, medical, legal and other departments, in coordination and cooperation among them, placing its trust in professionals who have tens of thousands of subscribers, was to create a platform to publish not only content relating to football, but sport in general, in various fields, and it seems this matter displeases him."
According to Rubiales: "The Federation took legal action against the company after it filed a lawsuit against it for not paying its dues following his departure, as the judge decided that this was the market price, and of course, everything is completely legal, but it seems this does not matter to the journalist."
The former president didn't stop at defending himself. He turned the attack around, comparing the case to payments he claims La Liga made to media outlets in 2023. "The sum of 36 million euros that Javier Tebas spent in 2023, from the league's funds, on various media outlets, is not considered a scandal by him, something that many would consider a scandal, we are talking about 36 million euros, and he did not even mention it in any post," he said.
Controversy has shadowed Rubiales's stewardship of the Spanish Federation at every turn, on the pitch, in the accounts and across the media. The man who ran the Federation through one of the most divisive spells in Spanish football history is still dominating the headlines after his exit, caught between accusations of financial corruption and his own efforts to protect his legacy.
Rubiales insists the project was legal, professional and built to serve Spanish sport. El Confidencial insists it was a propaganda tool for the president, nothing neutral about it. The courts will settle the argument, and a ruling ordering the Federation to pay the company yet more money looks to be on its way.
