Munuera Montero responds to conflict of interest, deleted socials and ‘lies’

Referee Jose Luis Munuera Montero has been the centre of attention in Spain over the last few days, since he sent off Real Madrid star Jude Bellingham. Los Blancos have complained virulently about his officiating, and on Tuesday it was announced that he had been placed under investigation due to his business links.

Munuera is now unofficially suspended by the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) and UEFA while they investigate a potential conflict of interests between his business Talentus Sports Speakers, amid reports that they do business with La Liga, UEFA, the RFEF, and other clubs, including Manchester City and Aston Villa.

The official released a statement denying any such thing on his Instagram, and later on Tuesday night appeared on Cadena Cope to explain his side of things.

“I was the first to see all of this hoax, these lies. I have been an active part in clarifying this company that has been operating for a year and with which I have given four or five conferences and transmit the values ​​of sport to young people. I am very calm and I want to deny all the lies to which we have become accustomed in recent months.”

“I created a company for when I am no longer a referee and we give conferences to companies. As an extra service, free of charge, to young people who want to go, we create a database with the sports business industry so that these young people have a reference site. There is nothing more. I have spoken with the legal department. I am completely at their disposal to solve whatever is necessary. Louzan [President of the RFEF] called me and I told him the same thing.”

Montero continued on to cite what he believed to be an orchestrated campaign, and explain the damage it was doing to his personal life. Certainly the timing of these revelations has been questioned, although the investigation will uncover whether they have merit or not.

“There are interests of other types that we have been suffering for a long time. I have nephews who are being vilified, nine brothers who are being wiped out, a 90-year-old father going to mass… How can we show in a newspaper the atrocities that we are saying? Do we control violence or do we promote it through all the media? I haven’t left the house all day without believing what is happening and this is getting out of hand. What sport are we creating?”

Recent seasons have seen multiple violent assaults on referees in grassroots football, something that has been highlighted by the Referees Committee as a consequence of the club and media coverage. Munuera also received death threats this week.

Meanwhile he continued on, as he had done in a statement on social media, to deny any links between Talentus Sports Speakers and football institutions or clubs.

“I have never been paid by a sports entity, ever, in my life. I get paid by the companies that hire me,” he explained. It has been reported by Cadena SER that his business partner in Talentus Sports Speakers, Francisco Sanchez-Castaner, does have business relations with La Liga, UEFA, the RFEF and football clubs via another company called Deportalia Sports. Both businesses are registered to the same address, and Munuera was quizzed on why there was a Lionel Messi mural at that address.

“Messi’s mural at his company headquarters: I don’t live there and I don’t have an office there. That is the fiscal headquarters of another company that the partner shares. There is nothing strange. I have nothing to hide, everything is clarified and the news will come out that everything is explained.”

One of the things that aroused further suspicion was that Munuera appeared to erase all trace of his participation at Talentus Sports Speakers from his LinkedIn page hours after the investigation went public, although it remains on his Instagram page. He had an explanation for that too.

“Before they sent me another 100 thousand threatening messages, death threats, insults… what I have done is silence the LinkedIn account (making the page private). I am not afraid because I have nothing to hide. My family is the one that is suffering the most, they are extremely worried, extremely worried. They know that they cannot ask me to leave [refereeing], it is impossible. I’m trying to calm them down. You can endure this defamation as well as you can, but my parents do not deserve this.”

He would also go on to note that until a perfect robotic system was invented, he and other referees would continue to make mistakes, and that the introduction of VAR was not proposed by officials. In addition, he also said he had not looked back at any of his decisions during the Osasuna-Real Madrid game.