2023-09-20 02:59:38
Total chaos in the women’s soccer team. A month after becoming world champion, Spain is immersed in a permanent upheaval that no one seems capable of stopping. This was demonstrated once again in a surreal and marathon day, which could mark a turning point. It all started on Monday, when Montse Tomé provided her first call-up list three days late due to the tense situation. She already knew before appearing before the media that the decision to renounce the selection of the vast majority of internationals was still in place and even so she included them in her list, in one moment unleashing the perfect storm.
The players insisted with their pulse to the Federation until there were no real changes on Monday night, through a statement in which they claimed to be aware of the possible consequences of their sit-in, but on Tuesday morning, after various conversations with the president of the Higher Sports Council (CSD), Víctor Francos, ended up attending the call due to legal imperative and clearly showing their enormous discontent. The CSD could not ensure that there were no sanctions, as established by the Sports Law, the Disciplinary Code of the Spanish Football Federation (FEF) and FIFA’s own regulations. That threat tipped the balance.
From there events precipitated. Long faces, sad and tired. Brief but forceful statements on the arrival of the Real Madrid and Atlético players at the Alameda hotel in Madrid, where the players residing in the capital and the national team’s coaching staff were summoned, but not all of those summoned, as initially planned. Montse Tomé was the first to arrive, at 10:45 a.m., then Misa Rodríguez, who was specific when asked if she was happy to be on Tomé’s list: “No.”
Athenea del Castillo, who arrived with Olga Carmona, explained that everything she had to say was already said in her statement. Later, Eva Navarro, Oihane Hernández and Tere Abelleira appeared on the scene, but they did not want to make any statement. The meeting between the coach and the players was brief and cold, although the Asturian tried to be understanding of the delicate situation of the soccer players.
The six players and the coaching staff traveled to the nearby Barajas airport before taking a plane at 2:10 p.m. to Valencia and later traveling to Oliva, the controversial scene of the beginning of the concentration, since the training fields for the Sessions prior to the trip to Sweden, on Thursday at 10:00 a.m., do not have artificial light. There was a trickle of the rest of the internationals. First Enith Salón, from Valencia, and María Méndez, from Levante, both residents of the city of Turia. Then Laia Aleixandri and Lucía García, from City and its neighbor United, therefore both from Manchester. Also Amaiur Sarriegi, Rosa Márquez, Inma Gabarro and María Pérez.
The last to arrive were the Barça footballers, Alexia Putellas, Irene Paredes, Cata Coll, Patri Guijarro, Mariona Caldentey, Ona Batlle, Aitana Bonmatí and Mapi León, whose flight from Barcelona was delayed due to a breakdown and subsequent change of plane . Once the entire team was assembled with the exception of Esther González, who has discomfort in her left ankle, as Gotham, her team in the United States, informed the FEF, the expected meeting between the internationals and Víctor Francos took place. .
Meetings
The president of the CSD arrived at the Nova Beach hotel in Oliva “optimistic”, around 7:30 p.m., to see first-hand the feelings among the soccer players. He also spoke with Montse Tomé, Ángeles Aguilera, the expedition leader, Ana Álvarez, the director of women’s football, and Rafael del Amo, the president of the FEF women’s committee. The name of Andreu Camps, the federation general secretary and strong man with Luis Rubiales, who until a few days ago was a red line for Pedro Rocha, was put on the table. His departure may facilitate the agreement with the footballers.
Then there was the conclave with the internationals, initially set for 8:00 p.m., but which was finally delayed until beyond 10:00 p.m. «We want to listen to the players. What happened yesterday was unacceptable. This is how I have transmitted it to the Federation. I felt that my obligation was to be next to the players to listen to them and look for solutions,” Francos had said upon his arrival at the team’s concentration hotel in Oliva. With the soccer players and Amanda Gutiérrez, the president of the Futpro union, the president of the CSD negotiated for hours, until late in the morning, a consensus to allow those players who so deem it to leave the national team’s concentration without consequences.
Five workers, separated
The Spanish Football Federation (FEF) separated five members of its communications office from the rest of the expedition of players and coaching staff of the women’s team that must face Sweden and Switzerland in the coming days, in the first two duels for the selection in the Nations League, a qualifying tournament for next year’s Paris Olympics.
The departments affected by this decision of the federation are the press, audiovisual, marketing and social networks, which are part of the FEF communications office. In total there are five people who no longer shared with the players either the bus from the Alameda hotel in Madrid to Barajas or the flight to Valencia. Misa Rodríguez, Athenea del Castillo, Olga Carmona, Eva Navarro, Oihane Hernández and Tere Abelleira, the six soccer players who traveled with the coach, Montse Tomé, found out about this decision when they saw that those five members did not get on the bus on the way to airport.
This kind of nod from the federative entity towards the players seems insufficient, since the international players pointed at the communication department at the time, but set their sights on higher levels in this section.
Thus, and in the event that the internationals finally traveled to Sweden, the Swedish international Filippa Angeldahl assured that her teammates would support a possible boycott of the Spanish in the match between both teams and regretted that they find themselves in such a “difficult” situation. .
«They must feel all the support that is around them, other countries support them in the decision they choose to make. If they feel they need to boycott the game to make something happen, we clearly support them. “That would mean that there is something that needs to change,” he said in statements to the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.
What sanction can soccer players receive if they do not go to training camp?
The Sports Law of 2022 states in its article 23, dedicated to the duties of athletes, that one of said duties is “to attend the calls of the sports teams when they are duly summoned, in the terms and conditions established by regulation.” . But this new regulation has not yet been approved.
Within Chapter III related to the sanctioning procedure, the Law considers as a “very serious” infraction in article 104 “the unjustified lack of attendance at the calls of the national sports teams.” For the commission of a very serious infraction “different sanctions may be imposed” in appropriate proportion to the infraction committed, according to article 108.
The sanctions proposed by this Law and that would be applicable in this case are a fine of between 3,000 and 30,000 euros (in the 1990 Law they were between 500,000 and 5,000,000 pesetas, an equivalent amount 32 years later) and the suspension of the federal license for a period between two and fifteen years. In the previous Law the suspension was between two and five years. Very serious infractions expire after three years, as was already the case.
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