A review by the newspaper El Confidencial revealed that Luis Rubiales, chairman of the Spanish Football Federation, together with Barcelona defender Piqué, pressured the Saudis on a substantial payment to hand over the event.
El Confidencial is leaning towards both leaked documents and audio recordings, and writes that it will be a total of around 24 million euros (close to 250 million kronor).
Today, at a press conference in Madrid, Rubiales commented on the information for the first time.
"I am furious at all the forgeries that were published, and extremely angry that information was illegally stolen from my phone," he said at the nearly two-hour-long press conference, where he claimed that the contract published in the article was out of date:
- The contract that was published was an earlier version that never became a reality.
It was a first draft, and we explained it to the journalist in connection with a conversation over two hours long at the Football Association's headquarters.
But he decided to publish it anyway.
Takes the credit for ladies
Moving the Spanish Super Cup to Saudi Arabia has been criticized by many because of Saudi Arabia's history of lack of human rights, where, for example, women do not have the same rights as in the Western world.
But Rubiales claims that female football players got better thanks to Spain moving the Super Cup there.
- Our ethics committee encouraged us to sign with Saudi Arabia because we guaranteed that they would then create a female, and that the women could get to the arenas and not be isolated, he says.