The Catalan Football Federation (FCF) announced on Thursday that confidential documents were stolen from it on December 31 in connection with the “Soule case”, a judicial operation to investigate the association's corruption schemes that led to the downfall of the association's former president in 2017. Spanish Federation (RFEF), Ángel María Villar, of the position. The Catalan company assures that the thieves were “fully aware” of the facilities and the “layout of the offices and who works in them”. The Mossos d'Esquadra have launched an investigation.
The attack occurred on New Year's Eve and was carried out using a button to access the headquarters on the second floor of the building on Sicilia Street in Barcelona. The thieves drilled a hole in the wall, cutting off the power and preventing the alarm from working normally. Once inside, they searched the furniture in the Presidency, General Management, and Accounting areas; It also removed the competition office, which until recently was the office of the former chief administrative officer who retired less than a year ago. “All of this suggests that they knew who was working in each room,” FCF sources point out. Now a safe and documentation of the “Soule case” are missing. The criminal operation went unnoticed until the second day, when the building's caretaker saw the damage and raised the alarm. The damage prevented normal daily activities from being carried out, although the association initially cited “an electrical incident” as the reason.
The theft of the documents takes on particular relevance since the General Director of the FCF, José Miguel Calle, had, on behalf of the National Court, been compiling information for a few weeks about the work carried out by the institution at the federal headquarters in Cornellà, one of the problems investigated for alleged diversion of Funds between the Spanish and Catalan associations during Andreu Subies' tenure at the helm of the Catalan organization (2011-2018), which coincides with Villar's tenure in the national association (1988-2017). . “The thieves did not take other valuables such as computers or televisions, but the safe and these documents,” emphasize FCF sources. In any case, the company emphasizes that there are copies of all content. “Everything can be handed over to the investigating judge.”
The Soule case is a large-scale judicial operation that began in 2016 and focused on the alleged preferential treatment Villar gave to area leaders to ensure his continuity in office. The former president of the federation and his son were arrested in 2017; and Subies, then economic vice-president of the RFEF, in 2018, along with the Catalan's former director, José Contreras Arjona, a businessman and close friend of Villar, who died in December 2022.
Among other alleged advantages, the judge examined the awarding of some works to Contreras by companies operating within the Catalan association and also indirectly financed by the Spanish association headed by Villar. An anonymous complaint received by the anti-corruption prosecutor's office a few days after Villar's arrest pointed to alleged cost overruns in renovation work carried out in 2014 at the now-attacked FCF headquarters. According to the complaint, these renovation works were awarded to the real estate company Tastavins, owned by businessman José Contreras, for an amount of 518,702 euros. This amount was paid by the RFEF, then headed by Villar; and Tastavins subcontracted the work to a construction company for less than half that amount (239,000 euros). The rest of the amount paid was allegedly used to pay for other jobs, such as for a restaurant in Cambrils (Tarragona), where Subie's wife acts as a manager.
Villar was removed from the presidency of the RFEF by the Sports Administrative Court in December 2017; and Subies resigned from the vice presidency in March 2019, despite initially receiving the support of Luis Rubiales, Villar's successor in the association post.
There seems to be no possibility of finding peace in the Catalan Federation. The company had to repeat in February 2023 the elections that had taken place months earlier in May 2022 due to “irregularities” in several points of the vote, as ruled by the Catalan Sports Court (TCE, for the acronym in Catalan) won again by Joan Soteras , which in turn succeeded Subies. During his term in office, the incumbent president had to defend himself against allegations that he had hired family members for some activities; and illegally consulting the emails of the company's former purchasing manager and its former general counsel.
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