The president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), Luis Rubiales, described this Tuesday as “a tremendous shit” the controversial awarding of the women’s Super Cup medals, when the players had to hang them around their necks. “It was, at the image level, disastrous,” she pointed out, since “we threw away the work that we could have done” for women’s football.

This is how the leader expressed himself in a conversation with Risto Mejide in traveled with chesterwhere he has qualified that the ceremony took place in the same way as in the men’s Copa del Reywhere the medals were not placed, but were given on the grass, and in the last edition of the Women’s Super Cup.

“What happens? That five days before we have delivered the medals in the men’s Super Cup, and it is compared with the women’s. It’s not a matter of discrimination“He has made it clear, explaining that he followed the protocol instructions.

The president has revealed that when he saw what was happening, he told his team that it had to be prevented from happening again, “because with the sensitivity that exists we throw away all the good work that can be done, for an image, which is disastrous, in which a woman has to take the medal”, although it also happened in the men’s edition.

Rubiales has concluded that “neither girls nor boys have to do it.” “It’s not the same”, Mejide told him, something in which the Andalusian has agreed, who has recognized that “it was a tremendous mess”.

“As the person in charge, I assume it. no need to do it again“, he has assured, and has detailed that there are currently 100,000 women’s federation licenses registered, compared to the 44,000 that there were when they arrived, in the RFEF board of directors there are the same number of women as men and “in the Federation there is no salary gap”. “We have worked very hard, and an image like this throws you to the ground”, he lamented.

The RFEF and human rights in Qatar

The president of the Federation has also addressed the role of the Spanish team in the fight for human rights during the World Cup in Qatar. The national team did not join to the nine countries that intended to wear a rainbow bracelet for the rights of the LGTBI collective, something that they finally could not do after FIFA’s threat of sports sanctions, but from the RFEF they announced that they were in negotiations to present an initiative.

“We made a presentation in Las Rozas with the United Nations, where we revealed a series of agreements where we defended the 17 points who defend themselves with the UN, including the right for everyone to have their own sexual option”, he recalled.

Asked what they could have done on the field, Rubiales wondered “what are we going to do”. “We went out onto the pitch, put on our kit and played a game,” he pointed out. “The only way in which sport can help is by entering society, fully” playing the World Cup “and taking what is done in other countries”, she has assured.

The march of Luis Enrique

Rubiales has qualified Luis Enrique’s goodbye as national coach “it was not a dismissal”, but a “non-renewal”Although he has praised the “fantastic job” he did at the helm of La Roja.

“It has not been renewed because there was a clear report from the sports department that said what had to be done different things“, the president has argued, although he has recognized the “very brave decisions” that the Asturian made, such as giving young players an alternative.

The president has said that he had a conversation with the coach in which they did not talk about his future as head of the national team, but that it was José Francisco Molina who informed Luis Enrique of the decision not to renew him.

Their relationship, however, has not changed. “I have one magnificent relationship with the. If you ever need anything from me, or I from him, we’ll be there. We have experienced very beautiful and also very hard things “, he concluded.