By Andrew Warshaw
July 27 – The career of Angel Maria Villar, one of the last remaining members of football’s political old guard who somehow managed to maintain his status while friends and colleagues were being swallowed up by scandal, is now effectively over after the seemingly untouchable lawyer resigned as vice-president of FIFA and UEFA.
In a short statement, UEFA said Villar, sensationally arrested last week by Spanish authorities and now in custody having been denied bail, offered his resignation as vice-president and a member of the UEFA Executive Committee “with immediate effect” and that he “will no longer have any official functions at our organisation.”
The inevitable move came within hours of Villar being suspended for a year as president of the Spanish FA, which he had run for the best part of three decades, and represents arguably the most high-profile downfall of a senior footballing official since the demise of Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini.
In its statement, UEFA said its president Aleksander Ceferin accepted Villar’s letter of resignation and “thanked him for his many years of service to European football.”
UEFA added that “in view of the on-going court proceedings in Spain, we have no further comments to make on this matter.”
Villar was forced to automatically relinquish his FIFA senior vice-presidency as well since it was a European position representing UEFA members. “Mr Villar has stood down from his post as senior vice-president at FIFA,” a spokesperson for world football’s ruling body said.
Last week, as part of a Spanish investigation, Villar, his son and two others were arrested on charges of improper management, misappropriation of funds, corruption and falsifying documents.
Prosecutors allege that Villar used his influence to funnel private and public funds into regional federations in exchange for votes to remain in power. He is also suspected of using his control of the television rights for Spain’s friendly matches to secure economic benefits for his son Gorka, who worked for CONMEBOL under three presidents who have since been indicted in the ongoing FifaGate corruption scandal.
While the investigation is expected to last weeks, if not months, its immediate knock-on effect is to plunge UEFA, and especially FIFA where Villar was second in rank only to Gianni Infantino, into fresh turmoil just when both organisations are striving to enter a new phase of transparency and accountability.
Quite what happens if Villar, who denies all the allegations, ultimately clears his name, is one of many intriguing questions. In May he was re-elected for an eighth term as head of the Spanish FA (RFEF) which has named Juan Luis Larrea as its interim president.
Not surprisingly, Larrea, the RFEF’s longest-serving board member, was in no mood to badmouth Villar on his appointment but his gushing tribute to his predecessor and refusal to accept Villar might be guilty of wrongdoing does not bode well.
“We are going through delicate moments, but that will not stop Spanish football moving forward,” Larrea, who has been in charge of the federation’s finances, said during a general assembly of the RFEF. “I will never say that I am not his (Villar’s) friend. I completely trust that the federation has been run correctly.”
Larrea, who hardly represents a new era at the Spanish FA, joined the national federation’s board as treasurer in 1988, the same year Villar was elected president. “(This week) has been very difficult,” he told Spanish national television. “It’s as if I had an arm cut off. I have had a very close relationship with Angel.”
The speed with which Villar has gone from political heavyweight to corruption suspect cannot be under-estimated. Little over a year ago, he was running the show at UEFA between the downfall of Plaitni and the election of Ceferin. At the UEFA congress in Budapest in 2016, he heaped praise on the disgraced Platini saying he hoped the Frenchman would be back soon. Instead, he has now joined Platini on the political scrapheap.
Many observers will take the view that he had it coming since there have long been telling indications that Villar had something to hide during a career shrouded in suspicion. His conduct was singled out in the infamous Michael Garcia report into the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bid process as being “deeply disturbing”. Earlier than that, back in March 2014, Villar was exposed by this website and two other media organisations as one of the conservative old guard who allegedly tried and failed to shut down the Garcia corruption probe whilst it was in full swing.
Tellingly, he led the Portugal/Spain World Cup bid campaign which ultimately failed dismally amid claims that a €1.2 million government grant was used for development projects in the Caribbean. Despite all this, at one point he had been a candidate for UEFA president but never really stood a chance and pulled out, his resistance to reform having clearly worked against him.
In terms of Villar’s replacement on UEFA’s executive committee, logically it could take place at their extraordinary Congress in Geneva in September but that is specifically to elect the occupant of their fourth FIFA Council seat.
Also, UEFA rules state that new exco members can only be elected at an ordinary Congress and the next one of those is not until Bratislava next February.
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