Spain’s women’s national team may have won the World Cup, but it’s firing victorious head coach Jorge Vilda.
Vilda departs the Spain job on the back of a long-running controversy over his treatment of the Spanish athletes.
“In sporting terms, I am going to accept all criticisms,” Vilda said of his firing. “But on a personal level, I think it has been unfair.”
Vilda took over the Spanish women’s team in 2011. He found little success in his early years, failing to reach the late stages of a single tournament. This was considered a grave underachievement given the quality of players he was working with; Spanish striker Alexia Putellas spent most of Vilda’s reign as the best women’s player in the world.
In 2022, the Spanish women protested Vilda en masse, with 15 members of the senior squad refusing to play for the national team while Vilda remained coach. The Athletic reported that their concerns lay with Vilda and his bosses at the Spanish Soccer Federation (RFEF), whom they accused of a lack of professionalism and technical knowledge.
The RFEF, unsurprisingly, stood with Vilda and chose to ostracize the protesting athletes instead.
“Jorge Vilda is unquestionable,” said the RFEF.
Vilda stayed on throughout the Women’s World Cup this summer, bringing a new-look Spanish lineup to the Cup that featured few of the players who had protested him (midfielder Aitana Bonmatí was one of the few brought back into the fold.)
When Spain won the trophy against the odds, Vilda found himself at the center of a new controversy: this one surrounding RFEF president Luis Rubiales. Rubiales kissed Hermoso during the victory celebrations without her consent; Hermoso accused Rubiales of harassment.
Vilda publicly backed Rubiales instead of his player, but his choice was damning, and his entire coaching staff resigned in protest.
Vilda changed his tune a few days later, but it was too late. Hated by his players for supporting Rubiales and hated by Rubiales for backtracking, Vilda became a man without allies, and his departure from the Spanish National Team was swift.
Vilda will be replaced by former assistant coach Montse Tome but with the Spanish women still refusing to play in the wake of Rubiales’s nonconsensual kiss, it’s unlikely we’ll see her on the sidelines anytime soon.