Lendoiro: "In Spanish football, many matches were rigged"

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One shall say the syn, but not the synner's name. The saying was applied to Augusto César Lendoiro in his statement as a witness in the trial for the alleged adjustment of the Levante-Zaragoza of the 2010/11 season. He acknowledged that he knew the meeting was purchased, but did not say who told him despite the insistence of the prosecutor and lawyers. The former president of Deportivo, a club to which that alleged illegal pact sent to Segunda, extended suspicions to Zaragoza's behavior not only in that game, but also in previous commitments.

"The thing of the previous game was coming, that Zaragoza played against Espanyol in La Romareda, and there had been very, very special circumstances in that match. It was later confirmed when he strangely invited Espanyol to play the Zaragoza City Trophy two consecutive years, something unheard of, "Lendoiro explained by videoconference from the courts of La Coruña. "Possibly if you saw the accounting of both the Trophy and Zaragoza, it is very possible that the amounts paid when they were summer games caught attention," he added. In addition, according to the former Galician leader, the operation was repeated later with Getafe.

How did you know that, as Deportivo defends, Levante-Zaragoza was rigged? His players told him. "They get in touch with fellow Levante costumes and confirm it. We get the clear news of something that was 'vox populi'," said the former president, who did not want to identify anyone but did deny that he had called Sergio González, former Depor then in the ranks of the Levant. "They were all Deportivo players, who meet in the locker room and tell you. It was not one or two or three. They had no doubt. It is not Sergio Gonzalez who speaks with me because we were not talking about the complaint he filed against the club, "he said.

"They don't tell me which players they talked to because it is what happens in the world of football. They tell you the news but not who. The players called it is not necessary to tell me. It was neither the first nor the last time that happened, "he warned to later point to Agapito Iglesias. "I was telling many people that he was already worried about a series of matches and that the others were already dealing with the players."

Lendoiro said they were "on notice and all of Spain was aware that the party was rigged" and said that in his conversation with Javier Tebas he told him that he was going to call the president of the Levant, Quico Catalán, to tell him.

Lendoiro confessed that he was not surprised that there were problems. "It was neither the first nor the last. In Spanish football, many matches were rigged," he said. And then he pointed to Sergio Ballesteros: "It was public and notorious throughout Spain that Mr. Sergio Ballesteros was the one who carried the weight of the Levante negotiations with other clubs."

Sergio González didn't know anything

Former Levante footballer and current Valladolid coach Sergio González denied in his appearance as a witness in the trial to have warned the then president of Deportivo of the alleged settlement, which he said he did not know.

" I didn't talk to Lendoiro at any time. I didn't talk to anyone about anything because there was nothing to talk about," Gonzalez said, who said "you can look in the call log."

He also said that he left Deportivo filing a complaint and that this strained the relationship between them. González did admit that he had spoken in the days prior to the clash with some players of Deportivo de La Coruña but that "at no time" they told him that they might be worried about that adjustment.

"I didn't even need to be told, they knew we were going to squeeze," said Gonzalez, who said he was not aware of any arrangement. "That I saw and that I know, no," he said.

The now Valladolid coach said he learned an hour and a half before he was going to be summoned for that clash and that he followed him from the stands. He also said he was "mad" after being left out. "I saw a match more than correct. We wanted to try to win but we couldn't," he summed up.

González also explained that in his day he denounced Interviu magazine for having published that it was he who transmitted this supposed arrangement to Lendoiro and that an agreement was finally reached to remove "the fingerprint" of that news.

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