Not even a month has passed since the World Cup gold celebration of the Spanish women’s national football team, but for the players the last few weeks have been anything but a celebration.
In the Nations League, the reigning world champion is scheduled to face Sweden, the world number one in the Fifa world rankings, and the World Cup bronze medalist, at the sold-out Ullev stadium on Friday. The team has had to prepare for an important match in the middle of a storm, when most of the team’s players were named against their will. However, on the night before Wednesday, the players and the union reached an agreement with the country’s football association.
The Swedish national football team’s all-time best scorer Lotta Schelin has followed the situation with sadness.
– Everyone knows how much work has been done to ensure that women’s football is appreciated and that things move forward. The things seen in the Spanish Football Federation should not happen anywhere. The national team had to win the World Cup in order to be listened to, and now it seemed that we are back at the starting point, Schelin commented in connection with the sports equality seminar organized in Espoo’s Hanasaari on Tuesday.
The players of the Swedish national team have announced that he will support the Spanish national team. However, the union already announced on Tuesday that the match is played normally. Swedish team leader Marika Domanski of Lyfors according to the match cannot be transferred.
The night before Wednesday, the Spanish Football Association announced that it had reached an agreement with the players and said that it would make “fundamental changes” to its operations. These changes are to be explained in more detail later. Women’s national team players demand athletic and structural changes. However, two players recently invited to the Nations League matches decided to leave the team for personal reasons. They have been promised that there will be no sanctions.
“Not the last case”
Schelin, who ended her football career in 2018 due to injuries, had time to see women’s football develop at a furious pace during her playing years. In addition to Gothenburg and Rosengård, he also represented French Lyon in his career.
In Lyon, Schelin also got to experience the rise of the French giant to the top of Europe. Former owner of Lyon Jean-Michel Aulas decided to create equal resources for the women’s and men’s teams, and Lyon dominated European women’s club football for a long time. Schelin won eight national championships with the team and celebrated winning the Champions League three times.
However, time was not always easy in Lyon either, and Schelin has since criticized his former head coach Patrice Lair dictatorial leadership styles. He also told the seminar guests in Espoo about them.
– There was a different kind of leadership in France. I understand that it came from a different culture, a different milieu. But I still believe that one should be able to do well in a group and team, even if the leadership is what and still perform well. Not just push the person forward, as if he were some machine or robot.
After the end of his playing career, Schelin has lectured and worked, among other things, as a football expert on TV broadcasts and has been involved in UEFA, Fifa and Swedish Football Association projects.
Especially in umbrella organizations, she hopes to see more women in management positions.
– This is difficult and requires time. Before, it was required to be the president or general secretary of one’s own association in order to get on the UEFA board, and there were hardly any women in those positions. We cannot get there if there are no representatives, if there is no space for them. Unfortunately, this is slow, but you have to start somewhere.
Nor has a woman been seen as president or general secretary of the country’s football association in Sweden yet.
– We’ll see when it happens. I look forward to that day, says Schelin.
Schelin describes the situation in Sweden as similar to Finland. There are similar value bases and organizations have guidelines on how operations should be.
– And then when we look at how it looks in reality, it often only looks good on paper. More concrete actions are needed, for example to change attitudes.
Schelin has seen the challenges of women’s football up close – and doesn’t think they will be solved immediately.
– Unfortunately, this is not the last case. However, we are talking about Spain, a European country. Women’s football in Spain has progressed enormously, their league has developed and there are giant clubs like Barcelona. When you look around, there are many countries in the world where just a girl playing soccer is seen as problematic.
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This is how the situation in Spain has progressed
The problems of the Spanish women’s national football team became public already last fall, when 15 players announced that they would quit the national team because of head coach Jorge Vilda. The union sided with Vilda in the case and threatened the players with sanctions. Also father of Jorge Vilda Angel Vilda has worked for a long time in the country’s football association with women’s football.
Some of the players later returned to the national team, but from the World Cup, among other things, they stayed on the beach Mapi Leon and Father Guijarron stars like – who, admittedly, were now invited to the autumn gathering.
Despite everything, the team reached the World Cup gold in the tournament. However, an avalanche of events started at the awards ceremony, when the president of the country’s football association Luis Rubiales kissed the star player at the award ceremony Jenni Hermosoa.
First, almost the entire coaching staff resigned, and later the criticized head coach Jorge Vilda also got his starting pass. In the end, Luis Rubiales also agreed to resign after much pressure.
However, the country’s football association supported both Vilda and Rubiales for a long time. In the end, it relented and issued a statement in which it “apologized to the football world for the inappropriate behavior of Rubiales in the final match of the Women’s World Cup” – after the Spanish men’s national football team had called Rubiales’ behavior “inappropriate” in its exit a day earlier.
Since then, a criminal investigation was opened into the kissing case, and the international football association Fifa has also said that it is investigating the case.
However, the changes to the operational culture of the Spanish federation have not yet reached the coast. The new head coach Montse Tome named national team players who had announced that they did not want to represent the national team. According to Spanish law, the national team call must be obeyed. Those who refuse may have to pay a bill of up to 30,000 euros, in addition to which refusal may be followed by a ban on representation for several years.
Many sour faces were seen at the national team meeting on Tuesday. Few of the Spanish players were willing to speak to the media, which had arrived in droves.
Many of Spain’s players published an open letter on social media on Monday evening, in which they said they did not want to represent the national team. Jenni Hermoso, who got into the middle of the kissing scandal, also took a strong stand on the topic and accused the union of intimidation and threats.
Hermoso is not among the players named for September’s national matches. Becomes head coach Montse Tome said in connection with the team release that he left Hermoso out of the national team “to protect him”.
The night before Wednesday, the union and the team reached an agreement after a meeting that lasted more than seven hours. The contract is to be signed on Thursday.