Spain's troubled football federation to elect new leader in April

Las Rozas (Spain): The directors of Spain's football federation RFEF have agreed to hold an election on April 9 to choose a successor to the organisation's disgraced former president.

But shortly after the board announced its decision here on Monday, the Spanish Council of State issued a ruling that appeared to suggest the RFEF needs to hold fresh elections to its General Assembly at the same time as it selects a new president, reports Efe.

Sporting authorities say the May 2017 balloting for the RFEF General Assembly and presidency was marred by irregularities and that the results were irreparably tainted.

Angel Maria Villar won an eighth consecutive term as federation president just months before he was arrested in a high-profile corruption case. Villar resigned the post about a month later.

The RFEF's acting head, Juan Luis Larrea, said on Monday that aspirants to the federation presidency will have between February 19 and March 9 to present endorsements from a minimum of 15 per cent of the current General Assembly members as a prerequisite to be accepted as candidates.

Should the Council of State ultimately decide to overturn the May 2017 Assembly election, the RFEF would have to start over from scratch, Larrea said.

"We don't know how it's going to end, but we think we need to initiate the process and we need to move forward," he said, stressing that Villar has already been disqualified from the contest.

In response to a question, Larrea acknowledged that the RFEF would not have time to organise a fresh General Assembly election before the 2018 World Cup starts in June.

"We would have to change voter rolls and have new elections. In that case we would ask the Council to postpone it until after the World Cup," he said.