Ceferino Rodríguez Avecilla

Ceferino Rodríguez Alonso de Avecilla (14 December 1880 – 1956) was a Spanish writer, dramatist, sports journalist and football executive. A prolific and restless journalist, Avecilla wrote countless chronicles about the most important issues of his time, as well as several novels and plays. He was an enthusiastic sportsman in his youth, being the founder of the magazines Revista de Sport, Mundo Sportivo (1903) and Gaceta del Sport (1904), and he is especially recognized for having been president of the Madrid Association of Foot-ball Clubs (1904), the first football federation in the capital. Before turning twenty, Avecilla married Carmen Cuesta López de la Rosa, who would widow him in 1941.

Journalistic career Avecilla began to write in his early adolescence, publishing his first text in 1896, an article about Cycling. This conflict caused Avecilla to leave the club in October 1903, along with several Madrid players such as the Giralt brothers (Mario, José and Armando) and Antonio Neyra who had also decided to leave, and together, they refounded a recently dissolved club, the Español de Madrid, and Avecilla become the club's second president after replacing Manuel Méndez, who presided over the entity for just a few days. Under his presidency, Español de Madrid won the 1903–04 Regional Championship of Madrid.

Two months later, on 4 January 1904, Avecilla was elected president of the Madrid Association of Foot-ball Clubs, replacing Carlos Padrós (Juan's brother), who gave up his position due to having been elected president of Madrid FC. Avecilla had been one of Carlos's main collaborators during his year as president, giving a house that he owned to hold the meetings of the Association, and even placing two of the sports magazines that he owned at the service of Carlos Padrós so that he could publish all the official documents of the Madrid Association of Foot-ball Clubs. Español wanted to play the replay in the next day, but Madrid refused, citing the rules of the tournament which stated that a replay could not be played less than 48 hours after the previous game. Nonetheless, Español de Madrid went to replay the match on the next day, but Madrid did not appear. The Madrid federation, whose president Ceferino Avecilla happened to be president of Español de Madrid as well, ruled in favor of Español, and they were declared winners of the match, thus eliminating the Padrós's Madrid FC from the competition. The tournament ended in further controversy when Español de Madrid was unable to participate in the final, meaning Athletic Club were declared the champions.

Later life His communist ideology made him have an active political activity during the republican years, to the point of being forced to take refuge twice in Paris. Avecilla was one of those responsible for the General Society of Authors and Publishers during the Spanish Civil War, after which he had to go into exile in Mexico, after having been imprisoned at the end of the Civil War. He arrived in Mexico on 22 May 1942, where he continued his active journalistic and literary career, collaborating in various magazines, in which he wrote theater and film reviews. Four years after his arrival, he premiered the play La condemned (1946), which he wrote during his time in prison.

In 1947, Avecilla won the first prize in the Theatrical and Lyrical Art Contest organized in France by the Spanish Libertarian Movement with the work Que en España empieza a amanecer. After this award, little is known about his life, and the exact date of his death is unknown. It is believed that he died in 1956.