President of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), Ángel María Villar, and his son Gorka have been arrested in an anticorruption operation carried out by the Civil Guard, accused of embezzling funds from the Spanish national team matches to enrich themselves illegally. It had nothing to do with FIFA or FIFAGate.

In addition to Ángel María Villar, the vice president of the RFEF and president of the Tenerife federation, Juan Padrón, and the secretary of that regional federation, Ramón Hernández Baussou, have also been arrested in an ongoing operation that involves six suspects, including the president of the Valencian federation, Vicente Muñoz.

Ángel María Villar is expected to spend the night in the facilities of the Civil Guard in Las Rozas and his son Gorka will be transferred to those of Tres Cantos, both in the province of Madrid. The Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard has searched the residence of Villar and the headquarters of the RFEF, as well as the territorial federations of Andalusia, Valencia, Balearic Islands, Las Palmas, Tenerife, Extremadura, Ceuta, and Melilla, according to sources from the investigation.

The Operation Soule - which takes the name of a medieval ball game - has been ordered by Judge Santiago Pedraz of the National Court, who has also requested that other private residences and offices, such as Gorka Villar's company, Sport Advisers SL, be searched.

Investigators point out that Ángel María Villar, who has been in office for 28 years, collected commissions for the celebration of national team matches and used his position for the hiring of services and other commercial relationships for the benefit of his son, a lawyer specialized in sports law and in charge of several companies where amounts of money were diverted.

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