Spanish football prefers dysfunction

The selection returns to the scene and does so on tiptoe, drowned in the dust raised by the Rubiales casean episode of extreme toxicity that affects Spanish football on all sides and places it on the verge of dysfunctionality, starting with the figure of the coach, Luis de la Fuente, ardent praetor of Rubiales on the day of the speech and critic a day later.

The coach is part of the wide cast of institutions and characters affected by the consequences of the crisis. Nobody knows where everyone is and almost nobody feels on solid ground. De la Fuente has been confirmed in office by Pedro Rocha, the president who owes his appointment to Rubiales. He believed that he had an ally and now he doesn’t know if he has an adversary. He will probably play both roles, as it suits him, as is normal in football, where former members of the TAD – the lawyer Tomas Gonzalez Cuesta and the vice president of the federation, Andreu Camps – have appeared as Rubiales’ main collaborators and architects of his strategy. at the forefront of Spanish football, in some way validated by the court to which they previously belonged.

The TAD has seen a serious fault from Rubiales and not the very serious one that in the eyes of the world her behavior in the final of the Women’s World Cup deserves. It is also common in football in particular, and in the administrative bodies of sport in general, to disdain for what happens outside its hermetic walls. Rejection, therefore, of good sense and fertile ground for the gatuperio, of which Rubiales has been the visible head for the last five years and who knows if in the next five.

Reprimanded, but protected by the decision of the Spanish court, Rubiales is in a waiting situation. His fate will be sealed by the final sanction of the TAD, which can never exceed the two-year suspension from office, and the final ruling of FIFA, which has shown its displeasure at the actions of the Spanish leader. Although Rubiales’ international discredit is enormous, there is no guarantee of a slap in the face either. FIFA cares more about politics than reputation.

While it is decided which part of the limbo Rubiales lives in, close to returning or close to dismissal, Spanish football more than pays for his polluting personality. There is a perverse logic in the effect of the highlight of his mandate: Spain’s victory in the Women’s World Cup. After five years of sordid conflicts, invaluable to the Higher Sports Council, Rubiales let go of his belt. He appropriated without shame or manners the spectacular success of the Spanish players, with a devastating result in all areas.

Almost nothing escapes the polluting effect of Rubiales. Abysmal fracture between the League and the Spanish Federation; stupor and division in women’s football; discredited selectors and players who until yesterday – the internationals issued a statement rejecting Rubiales’s behavior – have covered their heads in this case; territorial federations at odds, the CSD questioned and the TAD locked in its toy. It is difficult to find a more dysfunctional and negative model than that of Spanish football, which has no shame in turning its greatest successes into a focus of self-destruction. We do not know what will happen to women’s football, whose energy transcends the ineptitude of the current Rubiales, but we do know the consequences of the division and the intrigues that followed the World Cup in South Africa: a team questioned for years, now led by a coach without the necessary authority and supported by a federation in tatters. It is in this atmosphere that Spain will play in Georgia, a match that hardly arouses interest but that has a trace. If he crashes like in Scotland, his place in the Euro Cup would be in jeopardy and the coach’s position would be unsustainable.

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