Members of the Spanish ladies’s soccer staff at a coaching session through the 2023 FIFA Ladies’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. Reuters
Spanish internationals chosen by new coach Montse Tome gathered Tuesday on the ladies’s nationwide staff coaching camp, regardless of declaring themselves unavailable, with doubts about their willingness to play in upcoming Nations League video games persisting.
Two-time Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas and different Barcelona-based gamers flew to Valencia and arrived on the camp within the night to affix the remainder of the squad, with all gamers now current besides Cristina Martin-Prieto, known as up late Tuesday to interchange the injured Esther Gonzalez.
Sevilla ahead Martin-Prieto just isn’t on strike.
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There are nonetheless 39 gamers placing over modifications they need made within the Spanish soccer federation (RFEF) after the kiss scandal which pressured disgraced president Luis Rubiales to resign, together with 19 of Tome’s 23-woman squad.
Barcelona defender Mapi Leon expressed considerations over being pressured to attend, with any participant who rejects the decision up vulnerable to sanctions below Spain’s sports activities regulation.
“We would have to talk at length about whether the place is safe or not safe when they are forcing us”
“I believe that my position has been very clear, at no time have I changed my mind. I have given up a lot”
Mapi Leon speaks.
pic.twitter.com/DJV2mTWvV7— SHE scores bangers (@SHEscoresbanger) September 19, 2023
“We have to talk long and hard about if we are coming to a safe place or not when we have been forced to come,” she advised reporters in Valencia airport, earlier than heading to the camp in Oliva.
“We have been forced to come. But if they want to sanction us, then we have to come.”
Requested by a reporter if she was joyful to be included within the squad, goalkeeper Misa Rodriguez replied “no” on her arrival to the lodge.
Putellas was requested in Barcelona airport how she felt and the Barcelona playmaker replied: “Well, bad.”
The placing gamers issued a press release Monday by which they reiterated their want to not be known as up, however acknowledged authorized penalties could pressure them to attend.
Outrage
Former president Rubiales forcibly kissed midfielder Jenni Hermoso on the lips after Spain gained the World Cup in Sydney on August 20, scary worldwide outrage.
He eventually resigned three weeks after the incident and controversial coach Jorge Vilda was sacked, however many gamers need extra wide-ranging enhancements and structural modifications.
Hermoso was not named in the squad by Tome so as to “protect” her, the brand new coach, Vilda’s former assistant, stated Monday.
“Protect me from what? And from whom?” Hermoso posted on X, previously Twitter, early Tuesday.
She accused the Spanish federation of seeking to “intimidate and threaten” the World Cup champion gamers by calling them up in opposition to their will for the upcoming matches.
Victor Francos, the president of Spain’s Excessive Council for Sports activities (CSD), stated he must apply the nation’s sports activities regulation in opposition to any participant who snubbed the decision.
Nevertheless he later appeared to make a U-turn on these feedback and can meet with the gamers in Oliva on Tuesday night time, the CSD advised AFP, to ask them to play and supply them authorities assist.
“You go (to play) and we commit ourselves so that what you are asking for can be possible,” Francos advised Spanish public tv.
“If any player is not comfortable and does not want to play, I think the most normal thing is that they are not called up and another one is called up,” he added.
Spain’s sports activities regulation from 2022 states that athletes should attend the call-ups of the nationwide groups when summoned, and never doing so can be a “very serious” infraction.
The potential fines vary between 3,000 and 30,000 euros ($3,200 to $32,100), whereas they may additionally lose their licences to play altogether, for as much as 5 years.
Spain face Sweden on September 22 and Switzerland on September 26 within the Nations League.
The eventual finalists of the Nations League will qualify for the 2024 Olympic Video games.
‘We support them’
Spanish gamers have been provided assist by their Swedish counterparts.
“They need to feel the support around them, that other countries support them in the decisions they make,” stated Sweden midfielder Filippa Angeldahl.
“If they feel they have to boycott to make something happen, it’s clear that we support them.”
I anticipate @UEFA and @FIFAcom to guard the gamers of the sport they oversee reasonably than including strain. I don’t wish to be a part of encouraging folks to chase a soccer dream if the sport is not going to shield them whereas doing so.
— Hedvig Lindahl (@hedvig_lindahl) September 18, 2023
Goalkeeper Hedvig Lindahl wrote on X: “I don’t want to be part of encouraging people to chase a football dream if the game will not protect them while doing so.”
Spain plan to fly to Sweden on Thursday morning earlier than their match in Gothenburg on Friday.