And mutiny in full force, that of 15 players of the Spanish national team who have announced that they will no longer wear the jersey of the Roja as long as the current one will be on the bench coach Jorge Vilda, in which the Iberian football federation has renewed its trust. Each of them wrote to the RFEF insisting that the situation with the coachwhich they had already tried to blow up at the end of August, it affects their health and emotional stateand that they have no intention of returning to the national team until they kick him out.
L’aut aut of the 15 nazionali – Ainhoa Moraza, Lucía García, Leila Ouahabi, Mapi León, Claudia Pina, Laia Aleixandri, Ona Batlle, Andrea Pereira, Aitana Bonmatí, Sandra Paños, Amaiur Sarriegi, Lola Gallardo, Nerea Eizaguirre, Mariona Caldentey and Patri Guijarro – did not like it to the football association which, on the other hand, reacted harshly, describing the mutiny as “unprecedented in the history of football”, a situation that “goes beyond sport and becomes a question of dignity”.
The Football Association has no intention of giving in to pressure and stressed that refuse to play for the national team it could involve a disqualification from two to five years. In any case, he added, the 15 players will no longer be called up until “they admit the mistake and apologize”. The Federation intends to deploy the youth teams if necessary. In the emails, the footballers stressed that the current situation affects “their emotional state” and “their health” in “a significant way”, and that they renounce the selection, “until the situation is fixed”.
The tensions linked to the reconfirmation of the coach actually go on for several weeks and now the situation has worsened a few days before the next friendlies of the women’s Roja (fresh from the elimination in the quarterfinals at the European Championships in July), against Sweden on 7 October and against the United States on 11 October. The easier they arrive three weeks after a first mutiny, in which three players, Irene Paredes, Patri Guijarro and Jenni Hermoso had expressed their dissatisfaction with Vilda at the top of the Spanish football association, and facing the same coach Vilda who however refused to resign. Vilda said he was “wounded in the way of proceeding”, claiming to be a person “in favor of dialogue and always available to talk”.
Among the fifteen mutineers there is not the star Alexa Putellas, struggling with the recovery from the injury suffered on the eve of the European Championship, nor Irene Paredes and Jenni Hermoso, also injured and unavailable for the upcoming meeting, nor are the players of Real Madrid. Megan Rapinoe, Ballon d’Or in 2019, gave his support to the fifteen rebels: “a sixteenth player is by your side in the United States,” wrote the American national team on his Instagram account. In its statement, the federation specifies that players can be sanctioned if they do not honor a selection, but argues that “it won’t go to this extreme, and it won’t put any pressure on them“. But, the Rfef warns less than a year before the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, the athletes “they can return to the selection only if they admit their mistake and apologize».