Jorge Vilda has been sacked as Spain coach and sporting director less than a month after winning the World Cup, as the country’s football federation seeks to limit the damage caused by the crisis that broke out following the final in Sydney. The decision was announced as the first of a series of measures to “renew” women’s football put in place by interim president Pedro Rocha, although no specific reason was given for the dismissal.
Vilda had come under pressure after applauding the president of the federation, Luis Rubiales, during a speech in which he refused to resign, despite kissing Jenni Hermoso on the lips during the medal ceremony at the end of the final. He had survived a mutiny when 15 players pulled out of the Spain set up last year but his position had become untenable when 81 players, including all 23 members of the World Cup winning squad, announced that they would not play for the national team while the “current administrators” are in place. Eleven members of the coaching staff also resigned.
Spain are due to name their squad on Friday for games against Sweden and Switzerland which will decide whether the world champions are at next summer’s Olympics in Paris. A meeting of the regional presidents decided that Vilda had to be removed as a matter of urgency and Rocha held talks with him on Tuesday morning to negotiate a severance agreement before the decision was formally announced in the afternoon.
Vilda had applauded Rubiales during his speech before the federation assembly on 25 August, in which Rubiales refused to resign, said that he was the victim of an “assassination” and attacked what he called “false feminism”. In that speech, he publicly offered Vilda a new contract, increasing his salary from €170,000 to €500,000 a year across a four-year deal. The next day, with Rubiales having been suspended by Fifa, Vilda released a statement describing the president’s behaviour with Hermoso as “unacceptable” and “inappropriate.”
The RFEF statement thanked Vilda for his role in the “growth of women’s football, leaving Spain as world champions” and cited his “impeccable sporting and personal conduct”. He had been in charge for eight years.
Hours later the federation confirmed that Vilda’s former assistant Montse Tome would replace him. Like Vilda, Tome had seemed to applaud Rubiales’ speech but she was one of the 11 members of staff who offered their resignation the following day in a statement which called for the “restructuring and professionalisation” of the national team.
That statement lamented that federation staff members had been obliged to sit in the front row during the assembly, making it look like they supported the president. It also expressed its support for the statement released by the players and for Hermoso and backed her version of events in which she said she was the “victim of an assault” against Rubiales’ claim that the kiss was consensual.
