The Rubiales case and the crisis in Spanish football are far from resolved. Even now that Spain already has a list of 23 players selected for the next Nations League games: against Sweden this Friday 22nd and against Switzerland on Tuesday 26th. Nobody seems safe, however to be that all 23 will appear this Tuesday in Las Rozas. The Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) and the Spanish players, who issued a statement last Friday calling for profound changes within the institution, are measuring their strength in a battle that still has no end. This emerges from the call of the new coach Montse Tomé, who gathered the majority of the World Cup players and announced this Monday the return of footballers such as Mapi León and Patri Guijarro, two of the most belligerent in the 15 crisis – when Fifteen female footballers stepped out of the national team if there were no structural changes in the women’s team – and in his subsequent speech he made it believe that the association had finally reached an agreement with the players. It is not so.
The RFEF considers that the football players are eligible because at no time did they express in writing their refusal to wear the La Roja jersey: “They showed their discomfort, they asked for a series of changes, but they kicked not back from the national team. “, they point out from Las Rozas. And since, according to the sports law, one must heed the call of the selection, the association has chosen “the best”. “The best football players with whom we can play the games of a new competition that gives us prepared to take part in the Olympic Games,” said Tomé, who used concepts such as empathy, trust or communication in the press conference he held, claimed to have spoken to the players and explained: “We believe that you can help them by you are close to them and listen to them.”
Incidentally, Tomé’s list does not include Jenni Hermoso, the striker who was kissed by former RFEF president Luis Rubiales without her consent. “A new phase is beginning,” Montse Tomé has said several times and justified the striker’s absence: “We were convinced that this was the best way to protect her.” The association and the football players had discussed the situation in the last few hours Athletes’ demands were agreed to improve their working conditions and end the era of Rubiales and former coach Jorge Vilda at the helm of the organization. However, neither the World Cup players responded to the latest offer from the association now led by Pedro Rocha, nor did they comment after Tomé’s list was announced.
The creation of the list is part of a latent crisis since the retirement of 15 players in September 2022 and is intensifying after the kiss that now-former president Rubiales gave Jenni Hermoso in the middle of the World Cup celebrations in Sydney. Within hours of winning the World Cup, the players began a plan that continues to this day. And the RFEF responded this Monday a new statement insisting on “public engagement.” acquired [con las jugadoras] through the new direction of the institution”, now in the hands of the interim president Pedro Rocha, successor to the resigned Rubiales.
In a message that was also sent to the players, it said that the association was aware of “the need for structural changes,” as the footballers were demanding. Something that, as they emphasize, Rocha has already begun to realize in recent days and has led them to make “difficult decisions in recent days”; They are convinced that renewal is “necessary”. For this reason, the statement said, “players are encouraged to join this change.” But the football players never responded.
Montse Tomé, during the press conference and call-up of the Spanish women’s football team. INMA FLORES
Last weekend, the association gave the World Cup players an ultimatum through the new interlocutor responsible for resuming the talks, Loli Martínez Madrona, referee and delegate for the protection of sexual violence at the RFEF. They had to give an answer before the end of Sunday. But the clock struck 12 at night and there was still no news in Las Rozas. The players went to bed without having reached an agreement. And without agreement, they attended yesterday the announcement of the list of those summoned by Tomé.
The footballers had a proposal on the table that the association considers to be more than sensible. “They had discussed what to do in all the departments involved in handling Jenni Hermoso’s case. They verbally agreed that there will be changes and what they will look like, but asked for guarantees that this will be the case. They have been deceived many times,” say sources close to the world champion. The players didn’t want to make a wrong move. Therefore, they requested that this agreement be in writing. They assume that layoffs and new hires cannot happen overnight, but they want to be sure they are not deceived, as happened in their time when the 3 p.m. crisis was resolved without a firm commitment to change . They were pressured by the proximity to the World Cup and it worked. “But for them the World Cup was just a bracket,” say the same sources. The RFEF’s commitment came in the form of a declaration. And the statement did not receive a response until 4:30 p.m., when Tomé appeared in the press room at Las Rozas, the RFEF headquarters.
The players of the Spanish team win the world championship title. CARL RECINE (Portal)
The association had adopted the first of five points that the players demanded: the redesign of the “organizational chart of women’s football”, which should consist of a coach, Tomé, a sports management team and a person responsible for the sub-categories, in the image and likeness of the structures the men’s team. In addition, however, the players called for a deep restructuring of the federation’s body and the removal of the responsibilities of all those who failed to protect Hermoso after the Sydney incident. For now, only former coach Jorge Vilda has resigned alongside Rubiales, who was forced to resign due to social and political pressure.
Debug responsibilities
In last Friday’s statement, the football players pointed to five points for a number of people and positions in the RFEF and called for a clean bill of health. In the offices of Las Rozas it is believed that some of these demands are a reaction to the events of the last month, to the behavior and manner in which some of the people closest to now former President Luis Rubiales behave , behaved and moved. For example, Rubén Riveira, marketing director, and Albert Luque, sports director of the Spanish team, friend and right-hand man of Rubiales. Riviera and Luque traveled to Ibiza at the end of August to pressure Hermoso and other players to support the then president’s version. The associations understand that the players are demanding clarification of responsibilities in this sense. However, they point to many other names that are known in the house, although they have not publicly given their first and last names, and not in all of these cases has been argued why they want them out, they explain from Las Rozas. However, they assume that all of these identified accusers were involved in one way or another in the handling of the Rubiales case and the non-consensual kiss of Jenni Hermoso: in the statements published, the pressure was put on the player, her family and her self-exercised teammates, in the discrediting of the Madrid footballer and her lack of protection in the face of a case of abuse of power. Here other proper names also come into play: Andreu Camps, general secretary, or Pablo García Cuervo, communications director, who were already very weakened in the eyes of footballers after their management in the 15 crisis, due to their harshness towards those they have in their ranks That day they were called rebels and called “liñatas”.
Jennifer Hermoso with the world champion trophy.HANNAH MCKAY (Portal)
For this reason, the association has asked the players to identify the people they have named and to substantiate their allegations, as some believe they are victims of a reckoning, so that a disciplinary file can be opened to verify these statements in an attempt to resolve the issue . “You can’t fire a handful of people without first knowing exactly what happened,” federal sources say. Meanwhile, the RFEF has promised from the start that none of these people will appear at the women’s team’s concentrations that are imminent before the celebration of the Nations League game against Sweden next Friday.
In the statement published this Monday, which was also forwarded to footballers, the association concludes: “We guarantee a safe environment for the players and are committed to a climate of mutual trust so that we can collaborate and work together.” ensure that women’s football continues to make much stronger progress. We must begin to showcase the star that the national players have achieved with so much effort.” In this way, with these words of harmony and public commitment to change, the association has tried to resolve the crisis triggered by the Rubiales case . However, it remains to be seen whether the 23 players will respond to Tomé’s call.
Montse Tomé poses with a national team jersey during her presentation as the first female coach of the women’s team. INMA FLORES
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