Anger in Spain after choice for coach after comments about gang rape: ‘Never train a women’s team again’ | Foreign football

Carlos Santiso has been under fire in Spain for months. In November, a phone call leaked in which he made very unsavory statements in conversation with his assistants. He was immediately fired as coach of Real Madrid’s under-12 girls’ team, but three months later he found a new job at the highest level of women’s football. Rayo Vallecano Femenino is at the bottom of the Primera Iberdrola, in which Lieke Martens’ FC Barcelona is in charge. In recent months there has been a lot of talk in Spain about the bad conditions (poor facilities, hardly any salary, no changing rooms or medical staff), but the choice to appoint Santiso as a new coach has really caused bad blood among the fans and followers of women’s football.

In the November audio recording, heard by journalists from Spanish newspapers and The Guardian, Santiso tells his staff: “These staff are incredible, but there are things that we are still missing, that we still need. We still have to, I still say it, do something like what Arandina’s did,” he said. He was referring to a violent incident from 2017, when three football players from the Spanish semi-pro team Arandina CF raped a 15-year-old girl. The three players were each sentenced to 38 years in prison for the gang rape.

Santiso further said this in the sound recording from November. “We need to pick a good girl, but an adult, so we don’t get ourselves into trouble and get her all. That’s what really brings a staff, a team together. Look at the fate of Arandina: they immediately obtained their doctorate.”

Despite a strong backlash from Rayo Vallecano’s fanatical supporter groups, the Madrid-based Vallecas club has said it has no intention of taking any action against Santiso or terminating his recently signed contract immediately. Orange international Merel van Dongen, player of Atlético Madrid, has reacted with horror to Rayo Vallecano’s reaction. ,,Can someone explain to me why Santiso hasn’t been kicked out yet? What’s the point of apologizing as a club if you just keep training with women? The right way to apologize is to never train a group of women again. That is a minimal consequence for what you have said,” writes the 28-year-old defender from Amsterdam on Twitter.

There has been a lot going on in Spain for months around Rayo Vallecano’s women’s team. Players from the fifteen other clubs in the competition have often expressed disbelief about the circumstances in which the Rayo players have to do their job. For example, in case of injuries during matches, they must be treated by the medical staff of the opposing team, because Rayo has no carers itself.