A Spanish judge has placed former Barcelona player Gerard Piqué under official investigation for his alleged involvement in illegal payments for the transfer of the Spanish Super Cup to Saudi Arabia.
Judge Delia Rodrigo concluded that there were indications of irregularities in the agreement between Piqué's Kosmos company and the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), according to a court document.
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According to court documents, former RFEF president Luis Rubiales, the Saudi state company Sela Sport Company and Piqué signed an agreement in 2019 by which Piqué's company would receive 40 million euros as a “success bonus” for the matches played. They will each celebrate in Saudi Arabia. year.
“The facts investigated in this process originate from possible illegalities with criminal implications in contracts or agreements,” Rodrigo wrote.
Piqué did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Since June 2022, the court has been investigating whether Rubiales committed a crime of improper management when the RFEF agreed with Piqué's Kosmos firm to move the tournament.
In March, police raided the RFEF headquarters and an apartment belonging to Rubiales and arrested seven people in a corruption investigation into the multimillion-dollar deal.
Rubiales, who has denied any wrongdoing, was told by police that he was a suspect in the investigation in April after returning from spending two months in the Dominican Republic on what he described as a business trip.
Pique, who played for Barcelona in Super Cup matches in Saudi Arabia, was originally paid $4 million ($4.33 million) annually for six years. It was later extended for four years.
Pedro Rocha, who was then head of the economic department of the RFEF, did not call a meeting of the economic commission as he should have done to analyze the extension of the agreement for four years.
Rocha was elected president of the RFEF last month despite being placed under investigation after testifying as a witness in court and saying he had no knowledge of or responsibility for any of the alleged crimes being investigated in the case.
