Jorge Vilda Becomes New Morocco Women’s Head Coach A Month After Being Dismissed From The Spain Women’s Head Coach Role
37 days after being sacked from the Spain Women’s head coach role, Jorge Vilda has agreed to sign on as head coach for the Morocco Women’s National Team until 2027.
Vilda had been dismissed as the Spanish head coach two weeks after the incident where Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) president Luis Rubiales non-consensually kissed Spain forward Jenni Hermoso after Spain won the Women’s FIFA World Cup against England. He will now be unveiled as Morocco’s Women’s head coach this Sunday.
Former Barcelona Femeni coach Lluis Cortes is rumoured to have turned down the position after learning Vilda was lined up to be the Technical Director for Morocco’s youth teams.
What a great choice that would have been and instead of banning him from coaching any team, especially the women’s team, they decided to let him oversee the development of the youth teams. Don’t worry though, they put him back to coaching women.
Cortes supposedly travelled to Morocco after deciding not to renew his contract as the Ukraine head coach at the end of August. As a result, Vilda will now be taking on two roles as he becomes the new Sporting Director and head coach.
Despite being involved in an active sexual assault and coercion case, Vilda will replace Reynald Pedros who was appointed to the position in 2020.
Pedros built Morocco’s Women’s National Team from scratch, leading them to qualify for their first World Cup, reaching the round of 16. While they had a rough start to the tournament with a 6-0 loss against Germany, they pulled through in the last two games, defeating South Korea and Columbia 1-0.
It is still being determined why Pedros has been dismissed from the position, especially considering his extensive background and success. A former French midfielder, he was named the best women’s coach in the world by FIFA in 2018 for his achievements at Lyon after adding to their silverware cabinet over the two years he was with them.
The decision is a shock to all, including Pedros himself, after he had already been excitedly planning for Olympic qualifiers. He has been posting on X – formerly Twitter – about the situation, even reposting what others think of the news:
He took it upon himself to write his own message as well in two parts:
There is no justification for this turn of events, especially with Vilda publicly applauding Rubiales during the RFEF assembly on August 25. At that time, the president staunchly declared he would not step down from his position after the Hermoso incident and pledged to offer Vilda a new four-year contract.
Thankfully, neither of these assurances materialised, as Rubiales eventually resigned as president, and it became evident that a four-year contract renewal for Vilda was not in the cards.
Any further details have yet to be released, but either way, people on both sides are not happy.
Unless something is done quickly about the situation, Vilda will have little time to prepare for Morocco’s first Olympic qualifying match on October 23 against Namibia.
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