The world champions and the image battle: "Not calling Jenni was a serious mistake"
It's not just about what happens, but what people think happens. It is one of the basic precepts of communication, an essential starting point before addressing the conflict between the soccer players of the national team and the Spanish Federation.. A fight that has transcended football to be at the center of the media spotlight. A game of perceptions where the emotional plays a predominant role and that permeates all strata of society. To the point that citizen understanding in the face of a legitimate struggle for rights can evolve into weariness with an endless war.. Have the world champions lost the image battle? Here are some answers.
Reyes Bellver, lawyer for the majority union FUTPRO, knows a lot about the firmness of the internationals, determined to make structural changes in the City of Football.. “It is always beneficial to maintain the same line. And the players, for a long time, have had things very clear, with a well-thought-out strategy.. I understand that it may tire public opinion, but they are fighting to change a system and they are going to sustain the fight until the end,” this specialist in Sports Law, recently elected as a TAS arbitrator, explains to EL MUNDO..
What carpets had to be lifted in Las Rozas? How should change really be forged? These questions had been floating around for some time, without the footballers clarifying anything. Until last Thursday, Irene Paredes and Alexia Putellas, captains, spoke openly about “decades of systematic discrimination”, in the form of endless bus trips, early morning flights and a treacherous modus operandi: “We have been treated like girls”. Immediately, the detractors charged the bayonet. Why had they let so much time pass? Because right now?
“The demands already existed”
“On this question I want to be very clear,” Bellver ditches.. “Just because these demands have not received media attention before does not mean that they have not existed.. I have attended many private meetings between the parties, both from this team and from previous international ones, such as during the Vero Boquete era.. And if they have now reached the point where they did not want to be summoned, it is because there was no progress in the negotiation.. “It has been, like the F League strike, a last resort.”
That strike by the soccer players, which would affect the first day of the championship, served to establish a minimum salary of 21,000 euros per year.. But it also made annoyance proliferate. This same week, Miquel Iceta, acting Minister of Culture and Sports, congratulated himself because things “that were not done” in the RFEF “will be done”; while Carlos Flores, Vox deputy in Congress, tweeted a photo of the internationals under the heading “They do not represent me”. Was so much wear and tear taking its toll?
“In general, public opinion does not tolerate a lack of responses, disdain or arrogance; while closeness, understanding, agility when acting or flexibility are much better received,” responds Helena López-Casares, vice dean of postgraduate studies of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the European University.
It is very important to take care of your forms and be cautious and empathetic.
At first, the Federation had shown itself inclined to consensus, although it did not take long to list possible sporting sanctions and financial fines.. “I consider that the RFEF did not threaten, but rather remembered what the Sports Law says. However, given the great sensitivity of public opinion towards issues such as that of Luis Rubiales, it is very important to take care of manners and be cautious and empathetic when communicating, showing sensitivity and courtesy at all times,” López adds to this newspaper. -Casares, doctor in neuroscience and leadership specialist.
The role of the RFEF
Andreu Camps, general secretary of the RFEF dismissed last Wednesday, was the first piece to fall. Right-hand man of Rubiales, author of the complaint against the Government presented to UEFA, he was considered the main person responsible for 20 of the 23 international matches being called up against his will.. It was one of the red lines of the champions, who were accused of asking for his head. One of the proper names of this crisis, in the opinion of Fernando Botella. “The real person responsible, not guilty, for how the crisis has been managed is the RFEF board.. When exercising command they have the responsibility to find solutions. But instead of generating a certain calm, they have done the opposite, setting the atmosphere on fire with wrong decisions and creating distrust between all parties.. The falsehoods guided the board toward manipulation,” says Botella, an expert in leadership, talent, innovation and organizational transformation.
The vindictive gesture, before the match against Switzerland.
How should the Federation leadership have acted, then? “First of all they should have taken the bull by the horns, normalizing the environment and finding solutions. Then, do everything possible to identify common interests and achieve them. Finally, agree on new conditions, without threatening. In my opinion, that was the most erroneous part of this entire process,” argues Botella, with an extensive career as a manager in the pharmaceutical industry.
Of course, in this tainted environment, the figure of coach Montse Tomé seems to be called into question. “He has been accused of not being sincere and that the communication is not correct. To run a dressing room you have to go with the truth first. But we have come across the lack of leadership in the RFEF government. And that is note,” says Bellver, for whom the immediate solution is through “courage”: “Be it with Montse, talking to the players. And if it is with another coach, the same. Offer that guide that does not exist now.”
“The normal thing is for Tomé to leave the team. And in my opinion, after his departure he should convey in a statement the lessons he has learned.. Especially in terms of that 'lack of communication' that she herself has admitted existed with her players,” Botella concludes.. Despite the recent victories against Sweden (2-3) and Switzerland (5-0), the CEO of Think & Action still does not see the coach as a “potential leader” of the national team: “In one way or another she has left out of the possibility of leading this locker room in the future. “That doesn't mean he can't do it with other teams, but he's lost this opportunity.”
“It's something disruptive, uncomfortable”
Another of the most recurring reproaches to the soccer players in recent days was their angry reaction, especially in the case of Jenni Hermoso, to the “safe environment” promised by the board.. To analyze this concept, diffuse for a large part of the public, this newspaper has contacted Carolina Escudero, professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB).. “The protection that the RFEF boasted about is a measure that is imposed, not one that is addressed through dialogue. To a large extent it reminds us of the symbolic violence that the French sociologist Pierre Bordieu spoke about.. A violence anchored in a place of power, which does not recognize the other, does not humanize them. Simply decide and dominate, as if it were a natural act. Today, female soccer players are denaturalizing violence. This is something disruptive, uncomfortable, a process that takes time,” says this doctor in Social Psychology.
For Botella, doing without Jenni in the matches against Sweden and Switzerland was an “absolute leadership error”, a sign that the RFEF “did not understand the magnitude of the matter”. “Leaving her out alluding to these protection measures seems to me like a blockage for the conflict to dissolve.”. An excuse, in short. And where there are excuses there is no leadership,” says the author of Salta Contigo (Alienta, 2022), the last of his eight published books..
#SeAcabó transcends borders, cultures and languages. Was it late? It was when it had to be.
Only after the intervention of the Higher Sports Council, with Víctor Francos at the helm, did the waters redirect again, which helps Escudero to remember that “it is not too late” to continue moving forward thanks to “mediation”. “These are structures established throughout history that, for the first time, are being questioned, not from within, but from countries like the US or Sweden.. Nor is it an exclusive issue for women, because the reaction of men is seen in cases like that of Sevilla FC with its vindictive shirt.. #SeAcabó transcends borders, cultures and languages. Was it late? It was when it had to be,” emphasizes the Argentine researcher.
The hug between Putellas and Tomé after the 5-0 against Switzerland in Córdoba.
As a culmination, it is a good idea to listen to Bellver again, prepared for everything that lies ahead. “This has only just begun,” he warns, before offering a rather pessimistic view. “If this happens in the men's team, I would like to see if we had had the same responses from public opinion. Society questions women, but when managers do it or players demand changes, society accepts it better.”
Finally, it is once again pertinent to look back to know how the future can be unraveled. “The RFEF was created in the thinking of another era. While feminism advanced in other countries, Spain lived in a dictatorship and that modified many practices and beliefs,” recalls Escudero. “To modify certain structures rooted in the normalization of machismo and the discredit of women, it is necessary to maintain this position over time, to give space to discomfort, to the need to change,” he concludes.