For the first time since an agreement was reached for the vast majority of Spain players to play for their country again, some of those have spoken to the media. Not just any players too, two of the big guns in the La Roja squad – Alexia Putellas and Irene Paredes.
The pair were speaking at a press conference ahead of Friday’s UEFA Nations League match against Sweden. Putellas took the floor first, and she begun with a strong statement regarding the prejudice felt from women withing Spanish football over the years.
“Throughout the decades, we’ve witnessed a systemic discrimination of in the women’s game.”
Putellas also spoke about how the agreement to play again came about. She revealed that meetings were held until the early hours in the morning.
“We had a meeting until 5am. We’ve been sleeping four hours this week. We’ve had to get it into our heads that we could not just be footballers. We hope there is a before and after (to this situation).”
Putellas also addressed reports that Montse Tome, Spain’s new head coach, could be sacked after the UEFA Nations League matches against Sweden and Switzerland. She revealed that the players themselves have not requested that Tome is fired.
“We’ve never asked for a manager to be sacked. We’ve only expressed concerns or worries about things, which we have expressed to the appropriate person.”
Putellas ended the conference by stating the players’ demands throughout this matter, which are rather straightforward.
“We simply ask that there is zero tolerance for people that applauded an incident of abuse. We ask that this attitude is no longer acceptable within the Federation.
“Football is a reflection of society, so we don’t want these situations to occur. We don’t want to set a precedent. There is zero tolerance.
“There are two parts to this, one is the part with what happened with Jenni. To complain: that the system has failed, that the protocols have failed, to protect our colleague. The Federation emitted statements denying what happened, when everyone saw what happened then and in the Assembly.
“The second part is to work on commitments to agree to address the systemic discrimination, and set out a route map in order to address that. We want a much more transparent Federation.”
Not many will argue with Putellas’ statements. Systemic change is required within Spanish football, and this has needed to be the case for a long time. One hopes that this comes sooner rather than later.
