Villar re-elected Spanish federation president

MADRID: Angel Maria Villar was re-elected as the Spanish Football Federation’s (RFEF) president for the eighth consecutive time after he stood unopposed.

The term of office for the 67-yearold, who got 112 votes with 11 abstentions and six spoiled ballots on Monday, will run until 2020, with Villar having been first elected in 1988.

The former Athletic Bilbao and Spain midfielder has presided over the most successful era in the history of the Spanish national team, who won successive European Championships in 2008 and 2012 and their first World Cup in 2010.

“We have received huge endorsement which has brought us an undeniable victory. We have worked and won cleanly, it is a legitimate triumph, ratified by a strong majority,” Villar said.

The president is elected by an absolute majority of the members of the assembly which includes 120 members representing the clubs, players, referees and managers/ coaches, who in turn are elected by the federation’s ordinary members.

The president’s former secretary general, Jorge Perez, had said he would run against him for the post but instead brought a case against Villar to Spain’s highest sports court over alleged irregularities in the election of the RFEF assembly.

Perez withdrew from the election in protest, deciding not to present his candidacy on May 5, and asked the Spanish Sports Tribunal (TAD) and Sports Council (CSD) to annul the election of the RFEF general assembly, which they did not do.

In response to Perez’s accusations, the RFEF published a statement saying the assembly election process had been conducted with “absolute honesty and transparency” and that the criticism was “completely untrue and biased”. — Reuters