Spanish court acquits former president of Elche, Mubarak Wakaso of fraud

The former president of Elche, Jose Sepulcre, and the CEO, Juan Carlos Ramirez, has been acquitted by the Court of Castellon for the so-called "Wakaso case," which ended in the arrival of the Villarreal footballer following his disciplinary dismissal by the Elche club three days earlier.

The judgment exonerates both the Castellon club's president, Fernando Roig, and the player himself. The public prosecution requested three years in jail and an eight-month punishment of 200 euros per day for each of them for the crime of fraud.

The Castellón Court considers proven facts that on August 8, 2008, José Sepulcre hired the footballer for five seasons and a termination clause of 3 million euros. The player's rights were not exclusive to Elche, but 42.5% belonged to JP Sport Manager and another 15% to the Ghanaian club of origin, the Ashantgld Sporting Club, for which, in the case of selling, they should receive a dividend.

Three years later, on January 28, 2011, Elche made a disciplinary dismissal of the player, almost immediately assuming his representation by the company Desgrachouski Sport, represented by Antonio Jurado -also accused in the process- who offered the player to Villarreal, who three days later, on January 31, signed him for his subsidiary. It so happened that the winter transfer market was open at that time and if the footballer had not signed an agreement with any club, he would have been left without a team until the summer.

Through this agreement, the president of Castellón signed a contract with the company for 800,000 euros, and an additional 800,000 euros, plus VAT, in the event that the player happens to have a sports license from the first team. At the end of that year, an insurance was signed between Desgrachouski Sport SL, with the intermediation of Hita Sport, represented by José Antonio Hita, an important fact for the Court of Castellón when it came to issuing the acquittal.

The ruling says that the statement given in the trial by the representative of the firm, José Jiménez, was "confusing" because he did not provide documents of his statements, and recalls that the soccer player was also a minor when his parents signed with them as representatives so that defend their sports rights in the international market. "Mr. Jiménez says that he does not even know if he was the player's agent on the date of the dismissal (by Elche) since, according to him, he states, the representation ceases after two years . "

And he adds the ruling that stated that he ceased to be the player's representative because they took it away." Curiously, the ruling says that there are no injured parties in this procedure "who claim nothing. "

The entire accusation of the Prosecutor's Office is based on that disciplinary dismissal from Elche that he came to describe as "strange" and gives as an example an expulsion of Wakaso against Granada in the 38th minute and the sports chronicles to question everything. To defend the management of that dismissal, the then sports director of Elche had to go to trial to explain why the footballer was fired from the club. Thus he recounted that in the disciplinary files it was said that "he was on his own, he was not disciplined, he was very young (...) his behavior was to the limit," the ruling recounts. Neither for him nor for the coach such a footballer was a "good profile". Therefore, the player, in exchange for compensation, agreed to leave the club. Other witnesses confirmed the reasons for the dismissal of Wakaso in the same terms.

The Court considers that with the prosecutor's thesis: "There is a maneuver concocted by all the defendants who have simulated the dismissal of Wakaso to avoid paying the federative rights to JP Sport and Ashantgld Sporting", but the magistrates reiterate that it has not been proven in the trial was not even at the preliminary level, which might have served to hand down a sentence.