NEWS
Jorge Vilda Fired As Head Coach Of Spanish Women’s National Team, Replaced By Woman
Courtesy of @1libr via Instagram
The Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) fired Jorge Vilda, head coach of the women’s national team, in the wake of former RFEF President Luis Rubiales landing in trouble for kissing a star player after their World Cup victory last month.
Vilda, who oversaw a mass exodus from the women’s team last year when 15 players complained about Vilda and their working conditions, was a vocal supporter of Rubiales during the World Cup controversy, and praised his refusal to resign.
He was replaced by his second coach, Montse Tomé, the first woman to hold the head coach position.
Rubiales was captured on video planting an unwanted kiss on player Jeni Hermoso’s lips after Spain’s 1–0 victory over England in the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Sydney, Australia on Aug. 20.
After issuing an apology, Rubiales changed his tune during a speech at the federation’s Extraordinary General Assembly, and said he would “fight to the end.”
He described the kiss as “mutual,” and blamed the backlash on “fake feminism,” repeatedly insisting he would not resign.
In an Instagram livestream after the incident, Hermoso initially said she “didn’t like” the kiss. After Rubiales’s refusal to resign, she responded in a statement that the kiss made her feel like “the victim of an aggression.”
“This incident is just the straw that broke the camel’s back and one that everyone has been able to see,” she said. “But attitudes like this have been part of the national team’s daily life for years.”
The entire women’s team said they would not play until RFEF leadership was removed, and some of the men’s players resigned in solidarity.
FIFA. soccer’s global governing body, said it opened a disciplinary investigation into Rubiales’s actions, and he was replaced as the president of the RFEF by vice-president Pedro Rocha.
In a letter on Tuesday, Rocha addressed an apology to “the world of football and society as a whole.”
“The damage caused to Spanish football, to Spanish sport, to Spanish society and to the values of football and sport as a whole has been enormous,” Rocha said of Rubiales’s actions.
Rocha said the RFEF and its member federations have committed to carrying out a review of policies and procedures “in order to protect Spanish football and ensure that such behavior is not repeated.” He also said the RFEF sent the results of its investigation to “relevant authorities and institutions.”
If Rubiales had kissed Hermoso in the U.S. rather than Australia, “he’d be guilty of criminal battery and liable for civil damages,” said attorney and law lecturer Danny Karon.
“Even spitting on someone subjects you to civil liability for battery, and his uninvited kiss far exceeded that,” Karon said.
“That Spanish women’s national team coach Jorge Vilda supported Rubiales is only slightly less reprehensible than Rubailes’s behavior — especially considering the scores of young girls who likely suffered through watching Rubiales’s unwanted touching. At least in this respect, the U.S. is in synch with worldwide sensibilities, which these days is all too rare,” Karon said.
“Vilda’s dismissal underscores the strengthening of the global #MeToo movement,” said strategic communications consultant Robbie Vorhaus, founder and CEO of Vorhaus Communications, Inc. “Beware, if you’re a powerful man who hasn’t acknowledged the remarkable growth of organized efforts for gender equality.”
TMX contributed to this article.
