Miguel Cardenal's move to Mediapro
When I heard that Miguel Cardenal (the former Sports Minister) was about to join Mediapro, I sent him a message informing him that the move would lead to plenty of speculation. He immediately called me back and explained his motivations and reasoning for joining the company. I advised him to make these public in AS or the media outlet of his choice but he declined to do so, preferring to wait. The Spanish FA were quick to act with president Luis Rubiales emitting a tweet which deemed the move to be "a scandal" and this preceded a seven pointed communique which suggested that, when in power, Cardenal made decisions that benefited Mediapro and by nature Javier Tebas in pushing through the Royal Decree bill relating to Sports Broadcasting.
Television rights
That law was brought in to ensure that the allocating of income generated by television rights was fair for all levels of the game. It ensured that money was shared among the federation, high earning players to paying the social security for team members and trainers of the Segunda B category as well as a quantity being destined to the women's game. The complaint from the Spanish FA maintains that they were as good as omitted from the process which was mainly due to the nature of the then president Angel Maria Villar, an executive who was well known for not attending meetings. Football has benefited from the passing of this law with more income being generated and that income being better distributed with a certain Florentino Perez being one of the disgruntled few with it's implementation.
Speculation
The passing of the law was a joint venture between Cardenal and Tebas and it did see a process of clubs repaying their outstanding tax debts. Before the law we were subjected to countless "television football battles" between Sogecable and Mediapro and it was deemed that Cardenal looked favourable on the latter with Tebas always pushing for the best financial repercussion for LaLiga. It got to a point where it was widely speculated at the time that Cardenal would end up "signing" for either company. That has finally materialised and yesterday the former government minister did explain his reasoning for the move. There will be those who accept what he has to say with others however flatly rejecting the arguments put forward by the 50-year-old.