Corinne Diacrecoach of the French women’s national team, has been dismissed from her position this Thursday, as announced by the French Football Federation, after several footballers announced their withdrawal from the team until changes were madesomething very similar to what has happened in the Spanish women’s team.
The coach had announced a day before her intention to lead the French team in the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand and denounced being the victim “of a smear campaign” that he intended to destabilize it and that it has been orchestrated by “a settling of personal accounts”.
Despite Diacre’s words, the situation had been being evaluated since last week by a commission, which on Wednesday concluded that there is “a very important fracture” between the players and the team’s management, as well as “a discrepancy regarding the high-level demands”.
“This estrangement has reached a point of no returnwhich is detrimental to the interests of the national team”, the Federation assured in a statement, in which it “recognizes the involvement” of the coach”, but considers the “observed dysfunctions” to be “irreversible”.
The organization has explained that the change of technician “is part of a new global strategy directed by the FFF for the development of women’s football and performance of the French team”, to which he makes it clear that “he must achieve important objectives” both in this World Cup and in the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024.
Ce changement de sélectionneur s’inscrit dans le cadre d’une nouvelle ambition globale menée par la @FFF in favor of the development of women’s football and the performances of the Équipe de France, who should attend the high-level objectives of the CDM 2023 and the JO 2024. https://t.co/RMzOct5BcX
— France Women’s Team (@equipedefranceF) March 9, 2023
What happened in the French team
The captain of the national team, Wendie Renard, published a note on February 24 announcing her decision to step aside and retire from the national team because “I cannot continue to support the current system, which is far from the demands of the highest level“.
“It’s a sad but necessary day to preserve my mental health,” he said, in a clear veiled reference to the methods used by Diacre, and emphatically assured that “I will not play this World Cup in these conditions.”
She was joined by other important footballers in the French discipline, Antoinette Katoto and Kadidiatou Dianias well as Perle Morroniwho claimed to have “personally suffered” from the French coach’s management system, or Griedge Mbock.
The response from the French Football Federation comes only two weeks later that the dressing room of the French national team exploded in the air, although he has warned that they would not accept in the future that the soccer players express their criticism in the same way, for which reason a “complementary management” will be created.