A month after being fired as Spanish women's national coach, Jorge Vilda takes the reins of the Moroccan women's team. The link for the next 4 years includes Vilda, who will be presented on Sunday, also serving as sports director and coordinating the youth teams.
With her incorporation, the Moroccan women's team hopes to take the next step in its evolution after participating in the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. In that tournament, the Moroccan team competed for the first time in its history and reached the round of 16, causing a surprise in the group stage in which it eliminated Germany. The objective of the new project is to qualify Morocco for the 2027 World Cup.
Vilda, who was proclaimed world champion with Spain in the last World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, was dismissed from his position on September 5 by the new RFEF board after the Luis Rubiales scandal and his non-consensual kiss to Jenni Hermoso in the celebration of the World Cup. Despite the fact that during the conflict Vilda released a statement distancing herself from the former president's attitude, her strong relationship with the previous leadership of the federation, her applause for Rubiales the day the former president indicated that he was not going to resign in his last assembly and the Frictions with the group of players who demanded changes on the bench, asking for more professionalism and experience, led Pedro Rocha, interim president of the RFEF, to make the decision to dismiss him.
It should be remembered that Vilda is under investigation for an alleged crime of coercing Jennifer Hermoso. He was mentioned by the player herself during her statement before the Prosecutor's Office. Hermoso stated that Vilda had tried to approach her brother three times on the plane back to Spain and that on the third time she succeeded. "They tell me that (Vilda) has been going around the plane twice to probably talk to my family. And well (it was) the third time, because my brother was asleep. They say that it happened once, it happened another time, until she saw him awake and he started talking to my brother. My partner Misa (Rodríguez) already told me there that Jorge was talking to my family," he assured the lieutenant prosecutor of the National Court, Marta Durántez.
The former women's coach denied before the judge of the National Court that he received instructions or that he put pressure on the player's brother, although he did acknowledge that he approached him to speak with him on the plane returning from the World Cup itself.
In that sense, the now Moroccan women's coach assured in court that he did not witness the incident between Rubiales and Hermoso but he did notice a change of atmosphere from the field to the plane, where the situation became tense. That fact, added to the affection she has for the player, would have been the reason why she would have decided to approach Hermoso's brother.
Vilda explained before the magistrate that what she told the soccer player's relative was that perhaps the best thing would be for Jenni herself to go out in public to tell her own version of what happened to try to "lower the soufflé."
