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 (1903), 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. In addition to his journalistic, literature, and football work, he was also a lawyer.
A man of strong communist convictions, he 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.
Journalistic career
Avecilla was born in Valladolid as the grandson of Don Ceferino Avecilla González, the senator for Lleida (1881–82) and Soria (1887–88) who died in 1888. His family was wealthy, owned mining companies, and was well into Spanish politics. Before turning twenty, Avecilla married Carmen Cuesta López de la Rosa, who would widow him in 1941.
He began to write in his early adolescence, publishing his first text in 1896, an article about Cycling. His work as a journalist began in 1903, in the , from where he went on to , and . His work as a journalist was incessant and restless. Between 1903 and 1904 he founded and directed three sports magazines: Revista de Sport (1903), Mundo Sportivo (1903), and Gaceta del Sport (1904), in addition to collaborating as a sports chronicler in the Madrid newspaper Diario Universal, in which he signed his articles under the pseudonym F. Bowden. Mundo Sportivo served as a model for El Mundo Deportivo to be founded in Barcelona in 1906.
Footballing career
In his journalistic career, he stood out for his prominent role in firmly promoting sports activity, and because of this, in 1903, he joined Madrid FC's board against the will of then-president Juan Padrós. 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 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.
1904 Copa del Rey
Two months later, on 4 January 1904, he was elected president of the Madrid Association of Foot-ball Clubs, replacing Carlos Padrós, the brother of Juan. 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. Just a few days after becoming the president of the Association, Avecilla announced in the Madrid and Barcelona press the celebration of the 1904 Copa del Rey, which was intended to be contested by the regional champions of Madrid, Bilbao and Catalonia. Shortly after, however, Madrid FC announced that it would be them who would organize the Copa del Rey, and the 1903 champions, Athletic Club, stood by their side, along with several other Madrid clubs such as Moncloa FC and Iberia FC. A month later, however, Juan Padrós withdrew his will and let the federation organize the national championship, but doing so with just a couple of days away from the tournament, thus leaving little time for the federation, which ended up causing chaos in the development of the tournament.