Spanish stadium scandal: director resigns
Replacement of Celta’s stadium with Real Sociedad’s for the 2030 World Cup is shrouded in controversy
The scandal over the Spanish venues for the 2030 World Cup, revealed by the newspaper EL MUNDO, continues to rage and has already claimed its first victim: Maria Tato, director of Spain’s bid, has submitted her resignation to the president of the Spanish Football Federation, who has accepted it. She was, in fact, the only survivor, as her colleagues Jorge Mowinckel and former footballer Fernando Sanz had already been dismissed by Rafael Louzán when he took over as president of the federation.
According to the newspaper, in June of last year the first list with the names of the eleven chosen stadiums was drawn up, the last of which was that of Celta de Vigo but, two days later, another one appeared, which would be the definitive one and which was sent to FIFA, in which the Galician club’s stadium now had a worse score than that of Real Sociedad , an alleged manipulation that led to the swapping of positions of both in the classification with the consequence that Vigo was left without a World Cup in favor of San Sebastián.
The mayor of Vigo, Abel Caballero, upon hearing the news, did not hide his disgust, but he became even more irritated when the same newspaper published an audio recording, made between the preparation of the first and second lists, in which Maria Tata told her colleagues on the Commission that “if necessary, we will enter the data into Excel 800 times until everything checks out”, something that could be understood as a desire to influence the results until they reach the desired ones.
The mayor, who considers what happened to be “extremely serious with negative effects on the Spanish brand worldwide”, demanded explanations and that the evaluation parameters used and the minutes of the meetings be made public, all with maximum transparency.
Given the scale of the scandal, Maria Tato, at the request of her superiors, presented a detailed report on the criteria for selecting the headquarters and the steps taken by the Commission she presided over, something that must not have been convincing enough to prevent her sudden dismissal.
