MARBELLA CLUB

José María Ruiz-Mateos, the owner of the troubled Nueva Rumasa group, has been called to court next Monday, where he’ll be questioned as a suspect as part of an investigation for alleged fiscal fraud into the Rayo Vallecano football club.

His son, Javier Ruiz-Mateos Rivero, must also report to Court No. 45 in Madrid on Monday.

They are understood to face charges of three fiscal crimes including allegedly falsifying documentation relating to the minutes of Rayo’s Vallecano’s shareholders’ meetings. Europa Press reports that another relates to the alleged appropriation of income generated by advertising for another of the Nueva Rumasa companies, Clesa, on the Rayo Vallecano football shirts.

The third is an alleged tax crime over a massive debt owed to the Hacienda tax authority and Social Security over the financial years between 2004 and 2008. The total amount is more than 21 million €.

The investigation by Court No. 45 is at an advanced stage and has already questioned Ruiz-Mateos’s wife, Teresa Rivero, who is also the President of Rayo Vallecano, the club’s administrator and its legal consultancy.