Fernando, the 'coach' accused of harassing two minors: "I could give you the flag for..."

Ana María Ortiz Madrid

Madrid

Updated Monday, January 29, 2024-02:34

• Logroño A soccer coach arrested for abusing 8 minors and promising them contracts

• News Sexual harassment

The mother of the boy, a player in the children's section of the Valladolid soccer club CD Victoria, discovered the WhatsApp conversation on

January 2, 2023

. The minor, 13 years old at the time, had asked

for permission to go to a warehouse

at the San Cristóbal industrial park, where Fernando, the team delegate, had summoned him. The mother was suspicious of the unusual meeting, alone and in such a reserved place, so she reviewed the conversations she had had with the delegate on her son's cell phone.

"In the private chat through which they communicated, there were jokes about Fernando's

pedophile character

, they commented on traits of one of Cecilio's classmates [the minor's assumed name]. Fernando praised Cecilio's eyes and told him how he could make himself look like 'a hottie.' '. They made jokes about the size of Cecilio's penis, masturbation, fellatio, the taste of semen, urging Cecilio to

keep this relationship a secret

. In the chat, Fernando proposed to Cecilio to meet on 01/04/2023 on the ship where he told him 'I could put the little flag up your ass', among other

comments aimed at having a sexual relationship

with Cecilio. He also gave Cecilio a porn video of a television presenter, recommending porn movies to get aroused. Cecilio did not "he went to the ship due to the intervention of his parents in the process, aborting it and denouncing it."

All of the above in quotes belongs to the order that the

Court of Instruction number 1 of Valladolid

issued on January 5 - one year after the events occurred - to accuse Fernando as the author of "an alleged crime of sexual harassment of a minor under 16 years of age." /corruption of minors".

The man, says the investigating judge, had gained the trust of the boy's parents in the previous weeks by offering to

take him to and from training

, which allowed him to obtain his mobile phone number and thus be able to communicate directly with him. His ship had television, video game consoles, sofas,

soft drinks, music equipment, and candy

, he told the minor, allegedly baiting him.

On the ship I had TV, candy, video games, soft drinks...

The complaint to the Civil Guard led to the search of the aforementioned warehouse, Fernando's home and his electronic devices.

Two male masturbators

, lubricating gel, several USB flash drives, hard drives, computers and a detonating gun

were found in the ship .

"On Fernando's cell phone, 74,653 images were found, of which 533 had sexual content aimed at a male audience, three of them with minors. He had

1,171 images with sexual content in hotels

, 781 videos, of them 55 with nudity and 77 classified as hotel rooms. On the Samsung tablet, 137 files with nudity were found, 57 as hotel rooms, the majority of male homosexual nature," details the order.

On the alleged harasser's cell phone, the agents found the aforementioned images and more. There was another conversation with a second footballer that the court interpreted as another attempt to "obtain a private appointment to perform acts of sexual content." "One day we are going to my ship, I have Play and the VR [virtual reality] glasses and soft drinks,

we also have the McDonald's next door

," the Civil Guard read in the chat he had with this second footballer, whom he also asked to meet alone to go to the bowling alley or watch a game. This minor, who has already turned 18 today, does not belong to CD Victoria but to another Valladolid club, with which Fernando was collaborating for several years before. Although the court order mentions this footballer as another possible victim, has not appeared in the case.

"Really the matter is going to be limited solely and exclusively to one of the minors because the other did not at any time accuse this man of committing a crime in his statement." The speaker is

Ignacio de Aza

, the lawyer who defends Fernando ex officio. His client does not want to speak publicly, he responds to our request to interview him. "The conversation they have on WhatsApp, which is very long -

they send messages to each other for more than two hours

- is very unpleasant in some parts. Occasionally this man goes overboard, but from there he understands that there has been an attempt at sexual abuse as he understands the court...", says his lawyer, who will appeal the accusation, about the facts attributed to Fernando. "I think

things are getting a little crazy

. Ultimately, what the

Penal Code

establishes in these cases is the arrangement of a date to satisfy a sexual desire, something that falls within the judge's speculation," Add.

His lawyer: "Things are getting a little crazy"

Although some media have referred to Fernando as "coach" of one of the CD Victoria children's teams, the club explains to this newspaper that he did not have a coach's card and that

he acted as a delegate

. It was he who went to the green and white team's facilities at the beginning of the 2021/2022 season to offer himself. "We are a neighborhood club and we operate with volunteers, so all hands are welcome," CD Victoria explained how his

signing

for the club came about, where he spent that season and a half of the following season until the arrest of he.

Fernando, 56 years old today, single, said he had worked

as a pilot

and on his social networks he appears in some photographs uniformed as such and at the controls of a plane. At the time of the events, CD Victoria reports, he was transporting paper with a van, or at least that's what he said.

Upon entering the club, he handed over the

certificate for crimes of a sexual nature

that is required of those who are going to work with minors. He had no criminal record and the club never detected any gesture or attitude that would put them on alert. "His behavior was impeccable. No one could suspect that one of these characters would appear in the club. If we had had the slightest suspicion of something, we would not have given time for the mother to report it," they say on CD Victoria. "As soon as the mother informed us,

she was stopped

and banned so that she would not step foot here again," they add.