Football must look at how individuals such as Luis Rubiales acquire absolute power | Suzanne Wrack

Royal Spanish Football Federation officials can stick their heads in the sand but that will not happen without consequence

When Héctor Bellerín wrote: “The narcissist never believes they have made a mistake, they are able to lie, manipulate the truth and make the victim guilty in order to retain their power,” he wasn’t writing a “how to retain power” escape manual for Luis Rubiales. Except, you could be forgiven for thinking that’s how it has been taken, on the basis of the tripling down by the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) in support of its deluded president in the form of an 808-word defence of Rubiales.

The extraordinary RFEF statement – which dropped late on Friday night and is headlined “Official Statement of the RFEF in response to Futpro”, the Spanish players’ union – genuinely reads like it is meant to be Rubiales’s “A-ha! Gotcha!” moment.