The Spanish Football Federation fired the national coach of the women’s national team Jorge Vilda on Tuesday. This is reported by the Spanish newspaper El País. Vilda’s resignation follows last week’s applause for federation president Luis Rubiales, who said at a rally that “false feminism in Spain is a scourge” and that he has no intention of resigning. This despite his unwanted kiss on the mouth of football star Jennifer Hermoso, which has brought him under heavy fire.
After Rubiales’ speech and the subsequent applause – not only from Vilda, but from several influential people within the Spanish Football Federation – 80 players, including the 23 players who became world champions, announced that they no longer wanted to play for the Spanish team “as long as current leaders continue.” They did this with the help of Futpro, the Spanish union for football players.
Vilda continued to support Rubiales at first, but only after a storm of criticism against the federation chairman did he say that Rubiales’ behavior was inappropriate. Luis de la Fuente, national coach of the men, also applauded after the words of the now suspended president, but later apologized. He called his own action an “unforgivable human error”.
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Criticism from players
Fifteen internationals already criticized Vilda last September. In an internal letter to the union they asked for the resignation of the national coach, partly because he allegedly lacked tactical knowledge and had them train too hard, causing the players to start matches tired. The union ignored the players at the time and made the letter public. Twelve of the fifteen players subsequently refused to play for the Spanish national team. Nevertheless, Spain became world champion.
World football association FIFA already suspended Rubiales at the end of August, initially for ninety days. A few days later, the board of the Spanish Football Federation asked Rubiales to resign. In a statement, the association said that Rubiales “has seriously damaged the image of Spanish football with his unacceptable behavior”.