New complaint against the Catalan Football Federation

The case of falsification of records, in the elections in Catalan Football Federation (FCF)they start to get complicated for Soteras Vigo. Let us remember that in May 2022 they stood for the FCF presidential election Soteras Vigowho hopes to be re-elected, Juanjo Isern, Jose Palacios and Alex Talavera. Those elections were annulled due to irregular votes.

In the following elections, February 2023, 170 votes were cast from irregular clubs (whose boards of directors are not validly registered in the Registry of sports entities), through the use of notaries act granted by Soteras and Victor Guell (director of Soteras) before the notary of Sabadell Simón-Navarro. These notarial acts, as already declared by at least 88 affected persons, were made with certificates containing allegedly forged signatures, the author of which is being investigated by the Investigative Court 2 of Sabadellwhere nine people from the federation’s network remain under investigation, including Joan Soteras and its general director, José Miguel Calle.

Here is added only one complaint filed by Transparency and Democracy in Sports Associations. In said complaint, the association declared that the members of the federative structure of FCF They collected personal data from club directors without their consent. According to the complaint, the data was subsequently used to prepare the aforementioned notarial acts in the name of Soteras and Güellthereby obtaining a very high number of potentially fraudulent votes, against which it is impossible to compete by validly issuing notaries.

In the complaint we read that “the mere fact of collecting, for personal gain, documents indexed in the database of FCFsuch as the laws of football clubs with the right to vote, the DNI of their presidents, vice presidents and secretaries to send them to a public notary they trust, violates the rules outlined in Organic Law 3/2018 on Personal Data Protection. The transmission of this documentation constitutes in itself a collection of data in a deceptive and misleading manner.”

And as stated in the summary prepared by the head of the Court of Instruction 2 of Sabadell, the secretary of the electoral board himself, who in turn is the general secretary of the FCF, Oriol Camachostated before the Anti-Corruption Unit of the Judicial Police that those being investigated used documents from the federative database to prepare these minutes, without the knowledge of the interested parties; a fact confirmed by several clubs in their statements, such as the presidents of Atlètic Banyoles or Font-Rubí, among others.

The Association maintains that the actions carried out by the accused persons constitute very serious violations that could affect up to 400 people, so the amount of the fine, not counting the possible compensation, could be up to 20 million euros. That is why they presented it in front of Spanish Data Protection Agency.

The Association is headed by Miguel Galanwho is the president of National Center for Soccer Coaches (CENAFE) and known for being the scourge of the last presidents of Royal Spanish Football Federation. Whom or who makes the Transparency and Democracy in Sports Associations?

The names are the parts of the plot related to the current FCF president. The first of them is this Juan Soteras Vigo. In addition, to Víctor Güell Serra, member; José Miguel Calle Echeverria, general director of the Federation; Sergio Garrido Amestoy, deputy secretary and legal advisor; Alejandro Guerrero Fernández, secretary of the Futsal Committee; Alberto Prieto Carretero, head of the president’s cabinet; Jesús Manchado Villena, head of the purchasing department; Jesús Manchado Lozano, head of HR; and Álvaro Montoliu Tarragona, communications advisor.

To these we must add those who were part of the Management Committee who is the head of the Federation during the election. Its president, Joaquín del Pino, vice president Llorenç Santasusagna, secretary Andrés López, treasurer Félix Gimeno, and members Miguel Urbano, Eugenio Martínez, Manuel Romaro, Justiniano Fernández, Francisco Javier Velasco, and Juan Copas.

Let’s remember that at the time the Generalitat of Catalonia He demanded the resignation of the current board, due to known irregularities. The second head of government, Laura Villagraon his social network account X posted that “this is not the first time we have said this. Catalan football is already in the eye of the storm for alleged corruption or misrepresentation of documents. “We demand the resignation of Soteras, FCF president.”