"I'm not going to say anything, nothing," Paco González replied this afternoon to EL MUNDO, questioned about the alleged scam that has shaken his team, which launches every weekend Tiempo de Juego, the leading sports program on Spanish radio.
According to several sources of the chain, one of his closest collaborators, Guillermo Valadés (Mérida, 1968), would have defrauded the group, considered "a family" by all the sources consulted, several hundred thousand euros, pretending to suffer from terminal cancer from which he could only save a very expensive therapy for which he asked his companions for help.
Valadés, collaborator of Paco González since the times of both in the Cadena Ser, and fixed piece of all the celebrations of the group in recent years, assured his co-workers and friends that he was seriously ill a little more than a year ago.
The team of González and Manolo Lama reacted as one man. Although Valadés did secondary tasks – he was part of the production team and directed the program's website – he was considered close to González and pata negra of the "family".
So he was offered that the money from a so-called "premium" fund would be practically complete, month by month, to finance his treatment. This, in addition, would be carried out at the University Clinic of Navarra, with which Cope maintains economic agreements.
Valadés thus began to pay for his treatment, which according to various sources required more than 10,000 euros per month. However, with the passage of time there were those who began to suspect, until, according to various sources, two calls to the University Clinic of Navarra uncovered the cake: no Guillermo Valadés was being treated there.
The journalist was then interrogated, last Thursday, and, according to these sources, at first claimed not to be receiving the treatment with his own name, and then, according to El Confidencial, which advanced the news, threatened his colleagues.
Although neither González nor the rest of the companions managed to find him during the past days, this newspaper located Valadés at noon today at his parents' house, in the center of Madrid. "I'm with my parents, I'm not going to say anything," he simply replied to this editor, before quickly closing the door. Subsequent calls went unanswered.
The name of Valadés was also discreetly removed from the presentation that every Saturday, at the beginning of Game Time, Pepe Domingo Castaño performs. It was the first time in many years that the name of someone who was not only close to González, but also to Poli Rincón, Juanma Castaño and other journalists and commentators of the house did not sound at the beginning of the program.
"I have nothing to say personally, nothing," Paco González replied to this newspaper towards the end of the afternoon, when the adventure was already vox populi in the Madrid sports newsrooms that something had happened in the Cope. The journalist, according to various sources very affected by the disloyalty of his friend and colleague, did not want to reveal to this newspaper whether or not the issue would end up in court. The team of Tiempo de Juego, the leading sports program of Spanish radio, manages a millionaire budget with some autonomy, even within the umbrella of the Cope chain.
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