Footage has emerged of Spanish coach Jorge Vilda appearing to unwittingly touch a female staffer on the breast as his team celebrated what was the winning goal of the Women’s World Cup Final.
Spain won the 2023 Women’s World Cup with a 1-0 win over England on the back of captain Olga Carmona’s first half strike.
Footage of the moment seems to capture Vilda embracing those around him as the goal is scored.
Although the world feed cut away, other footage shows Vilda’s hand go from a female staffer’s shoulder to her breast while he looks out onto the field.
While it is not suggested the contact was intentional, the vision has shocked many on social media, particularly coming a year after 15 players walked away from the Spanish national team, claiming Vilda was treating them like “children.”
The unrest began in September 2022 when 15 of Spain’s Euros squad emailed the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) to say they did not want to be considered for selection, citing their “emotional state.”
The exact nature of their complaints was never officially made public, but Spanish media had previously reported that they wanted the 42-year-old Vilda, who has been in the job since 2015, fired.
The players later denied the claims, but they were reported to have a litany of complaints about how things were run on and off the field.
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Reports said the players, many of whom were at Barcelona, accused Vilda of being “dictatorial” and did not approve of his training methods or tactics.
Mundo Deportivo and other publications said he would insist on the players keeping their hotel doors open before midnight while on national duty so he could personally check that they were asleep on time.
There were also claims that if the players went out, Vilda wanted to know where they were going, with whom and what they were buying.
Vilda said in the lead-up to the World Cup that the dispute was “practically over.”
However, only three of the 15 players have returned to national duty.
Suggesting that all was still not well, Barcelona’s Mapi Leon, who is one of the players who has refused to return to the side, said: “I can’t go back, there has to be changes.”
At the World Cup, Vilda was repeatedly asked by non-Spanish reporters about the controversy.
He is a typically guarded character, but following Spain’s 2-1 win in the semifinals over Sweden, he said that the turmoil had “made all of us stronger.”
“The support of Luis Rubiales, the president of the federation, and everyone at the federation, means so much and will always stay with me, as well as that of my family because they have suffered this year,” Vilda said.
However, Rubiales, the president of the Spanish Football Federation, also landed himself in hot water for kissing Jenni Hermoso on the lips after Spain won the match.
Hermoso said she “didn’t like it” in an Instagram Live video, but later told AFP via a statement from the Spanish federation that it was: “A totally spontaneous mutual gesture because of the immense joy that winning a World Cup brings.
“The president and I have a great relationship, his behavior with all of us has been outstanding and it was a natural gesture of affection and gratitude.”
Posting a video message, Rubiales apologized for the incident, although also called the outrage “idiotic.”
“Certainly I made a mistake and I have to acknowledge that,” Rubiales said in a video posted on social media by Spanish television.
“It was done without any ill intention in a moment of the highest exuberance. Here we saw it as natural and normal but outside it has caused a commotion. I have no choice but to apologize and to learn from this … and when representing the federation take more care.”