• Payments: Real Zaragoza admits premium payments in envelopes before the match against Levante
  • Origin: Who is the mysterious player who revealed the adjustment to Thebes?
  • Origin.Levante-Zaragoza: In search of the million euros

1.73 million euros paid Real Zaragoza in premiums to the players of its staff in May 2011, while preparing the bankruptcy for its bad economic situation. The order was given by its then president, Agapito Iglesias , to "motivate" them in the fight to avoid relegation. This was recognized during his testimony at the trial by the alleged size of the Levante-Zaragoza.

When asked by the prosecutor, Agapito described why cash payments of 765,000 euros and another 965,000 were made in transfers to nine players, the coach and the sports director. All, in hand or in their accounts, in the last month of competition and none recognized by the players as bonuses. If they went, in whole or in part, the alleged adjustment is something they will try to prove the accusations.

The former president justified the delivery in envelopes, something that Zaragoza's legal representative, Vice President Fernando Sainz de Varanda , admitted as usual in football without constituting a crime. «Since we were not paying and to give them special motivation, I approved a premium for the permanence that is paid match by match. It was paid on Mondays: 1,000 euros per tie, 3,000 to win, 6,000 for two consecutive wins and 9,000 for three. It was a verbal pact that Antonio Prieto negotiated with the three captains, ”Agapito said. Why were they paid in cash? «Because the players knew there would be a bankruptcy and they asked us for the money on the table . Otherwise they believed that they would not charge it, ”reasoned Agapito, who confirmed what was said minutes before by the current vice president of Zaragoza: the pact with the players was to return that money in case of decline or discount it from outstanding debts.

According to the case, the output of that money is collected in three receipts signed by Gabi as a representative of the workforce, individually and the third is named Javier Aguirre , but not the signature. The Mexican and the majority of players denied during the instruction to have received that money.

To these quantities on which their destiny is unknown, the transfers made to only nine players, the coach and the sports director are added two days before Levante-Zaragoza. "It is a cousin that is negotiated last week and paid to those who carried the weight of the team," said Agapito, who ignored how he paid and denied contacts with the players those days because he was out of Spain, in the final of the Europa League. This version is new and intends to discredit Gabi and Jorge López , who claimed to have paid him back in cash. «I did not receive any amount. Has no sense. Ten days before I lent eight million to Zaragoza. If I had needed money, I would have taken it out of my accounts, ”he said.

What happened to the money transferred and if it ended up in the hands of the Levant is something he denied knowing. "They are cousins. Zaragoza did its job well, another thing is what players do with those bonuses, ”he said.

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