Former presidential candidate Villar Mir has revealed he ordered ex-club chief Ramon Calderon to be followed after losing out to his rival in the 2006 elections

Real Madrid are the latest Spanish side to be embroiled in a ‘spying’ scandal following claims that former presidential candidate Juan Miguel Villar Mir paid for private investigators to follow former club chief Ramon Calderon.

Villar Mir, president of the multinational construction and civil engineering company OHL, lost out to Calderon in the Madrid elections of 2006 amid much controversy after a failure to count postal votes meant he did not assume the Santiago Bernabeu hotseat, instead losing out to his rival.

It was then, the businessman told a court hearing in the Spanish capital last month, that he arranged through a member of one of his companies for Calderon to be tracked by a private investigation firm.

According to a judicial document obtained by El Confidencial, he told a judge: “Given the wish to be president of Real Madrid and to find out the state of the internal accounts, I asked [Daniel Santos, head of security at the Espacio real estate firm, one of the companies belonging to the OHL Group] “if he could carry out a ‘following’ of Real Madrid and he said ‘yes’.”

Villar Mir also revealed in his statement: “The ultimate objective of the assignment was to follow Calderon.”

The judge added: “[The espionage was carried out] after his candidacy for the presidency, when he won the elections but wasn’t recognised due to a bad recount.”

The real estate company, Espacio, contacted Mira Detectives to carry out the espionage.

The news follows claims in the Spanish press late last month that former Barcelona boss Pep Guardiola contracted private investigators to spy on Gerard Pique during the early months of his relationship with Shakira and prior to his courtship with the Colombian singer.

Barcelona have refused to comment on those reports.