The image of Vicente del Bosque on Saturday in the San Mamés box during Barcelona’s victory against Olympique Lyonnais in the final of the Women’s Champions League had enormous symbolism. The former coach, a consensus figure who presides over the Normalization, Representation and Supervision Commission promoted by the Higher Sports Council (CSD) to protect the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) in the face of the succession of scandals in which it has been involved immersed, she was the visible head of Spanish football in Bilbao, where the attendance record in a final of the continental competition was broken. The absence of the president of the federation, Pedro Rocha – the successor of Luis Rubiales – and the presence of Del Bosque – who made it a condition for leading the commission not to collect any salary – represent the progress of the fight that the players began in 2022. of the Spanish team and Barcelona for transforming an organization that has historically marginalized them and treated them worse than their male teammates.
The former coach, with glasses, a white shirt and a dark suit and tie, represented the Government of Spain in the stadium. There was also Pilar Alegría, Minister of Education, Vocational Training and Sports, and María Ángeles García, first vice president of the RFEF, but no member of the body that governs Spanish football close to Rubiales sat in the box. Rocha, accused in Operation Brodie – in which alleged irregularities in the federation during the mandate of his predecessor – and on whom a file for very serious misconduct was opened against him by the Sports Administrative Court (TAD), agreed to the Friday with the CSD that would not go to San Mamés.
Del Bosque’s presence is nothing like the end of the fight that the soccer players began, but it represents a milestone on the path that 15 of them began in September 2022 when they gave up going to the national team if structural changes did not occur in the female. Of those who starred in the so-called 15 o’clock crisis, seven were on the San Mamés grass or on the bench on Saturday: Ona Batlle, Aitana Bonmatí, Mariona Caldentey, Patri Guijarro, Mapi León, Sandra Paños and Claudia Pina. In addition, two others, the team captains Irene Paredes and Alexia Putellas, did not sign the statement at the time, but publicly supported their teammates. Both had lived together in La Roja until 2015 with former coach Ignacio Quereda, accused of treating them with contempt during his long period at the head of the Spanish bench (from 1988 to 2015).
Some of the soccer players backed down and showed themselves eligible again before the 2023 World Cup, but after winning the first World Cup last summer, the situation exploded with the kiss that Rubiales planted on Jenni Hermoso in full celebrations for the title. in Sydney. The behavior of the former president of the federation – who also touched his genitals in the stadium box during the final against England – sparked the rejection of millions of people in Spain and around the world.
The same night he kissed Hermoso, Rubiales—reported administratively and prosecuted for sexual assault and coercion—went live on Cadena Cope and called “assholes” and “assholes” to those who were outraged by his behavior. , but the wave of rejection did not stop growing in all sectors of society: on the street, but also in politics and in the institutions after the players chanted the now famous “it’s over” that Putellas started on Friday the 25th. August 2023.
The revolution that the soccer players started by Rubiales case in the RFEF – a private organization that exercises a public function – after the World Cup caused the former president of the federation to step aside on September 10, 2023, two weeks after his cocky “I am not going to resign” – repeated five times—in the face of the majority rejection that his way of acting had aroused. Since then, former coach Jorge Vilda, whose players questioned his training methods, has also fallen; Albert Luque, then sports director, and Rubén Rivera, then marketing director, for whom the prosecutor’s office is asking for a year and a half in prison for allegedly coercing Hermoso to “publicly justify and approve the kiss that he gave him against his will.” Luis Rubiales”, according to the letter from the public ministry.
The players, among other things, also achieved the creation of a commission to which they can turn in moments of crisis, the development of a protocol for action in cases of sexual violence and the dismissal of two other names whom they had pointed out: Andreu Camps , then general secretary, and Pablo García Cuervo, who was the communications director. Both had been very weakened in the eyes of the soccer players after the management of the 15 crisis after describing them as rebels and calling them “little girls.”
The situation, however, is far from being resolved definitively. Rocha, a Rubiales dolphin, continues to lead the federation and some of the best soccer players in the world, such as Guijarro, Pina or Mapi, have not yet wanted to return to the national team despite the fact that in two months La Roja has a historic event , his first Olympic Games.
On Saturday, there were also two Lyon players on the San Mamés grass who raised their voices for equality between men and women and the treatment they suffered as professionals. One was the Norwegian forward Ada Hegerberg, the first Ballon d’Or winner in history, who gave up playing in the 2019 World Cup due to the situation of inequality – with worse infrastructure and resources – that her team suffered compared to her teammates. . The other was midfielder Damaris Egurrola, who after achieving success in Spain’s youth ranks decided to play for the Netherlands in April 2022 after Vilda had not called her up for the senior team for almost three years – she had made her debut in a friendly in May 2019. against Cameroon. Egurrola, who had already had a run-in with the coach in the locker room at the U20 World Cup when he told him that he didn’t like how he played, even had a public scuffle with the former coach and accused him of lying when he said that he had tried to contact her to select it. The midfielder explained the episode a few days ago in an interview with this newspaper: “I had to raise my voice, it was what I needed, for people to know the truth.”
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