This is Reyes Bellver, the RFEF's executive arm who replaced Tomé with a tandem that raises doubts: "Louzán gives freedom, but then demands accountability."

"Even if I don't fully agree, I leave all decisions in the hands of the coaches." With this statement, Rafael Louzán , president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), addressed the third item on the agenda of the organization's Board of Directors meeting, which dealt with the continuation of the position of the women's national team coach. He also maintained that he left "all decisions regarding women's football in the hands of the director of football, Reyes Bellver , and the director of sports, María Pry , acting as a team."

The Federation tells EL MUNDO that the president is someone who likes to "give people freedom, but if you fail later, he forces you to be held accountable." Thus, women's football, shaken for two years by the Rubiales case , now has as its main leaders Bellver, a sports lawyer and former advisor to the FUTPRO union, and María del Mar Fernández Montero , known as María Pry, former coach and sporting director of Betis, Sevilla, and Levante, among other clubs. They are joined by a "team built ad hoc, which will take the credit or the failure of this 'change of era,'" according to the Federation.

They were tasked with revamping the entire women's sports division because, they claim, it was "very individualistic work," with coaches who didn't speak to each other and were held in "separate departments." They proposed a unified project with fluid communication between the different categories of women's football. The report they presented to Louzán about their project, which included the departure of Montse Tomé , was a "serious and rigorous" document, according to the federation. And it has nothing to do with closing the Rubial era of an organization where, theoretically, few people remain related to the former president.

Curiously, Reyes Bellver was recommended to the Federation by Álvaro de Miguel , the organization's secretary general. Both coincided, along with Emilio García Silvero , director of Legal Services and Compliance at FIFA, in the Master's in Sports Law taught by Andreu Camps , Rubiales' right-hand man, at the University of Lleida. Bellver was also a member of the firm specializing in consulting and legal advice in the international sports field, headed by Gorka Villar , son of the former president of the RFEF.

Bellver 's idea was always to dispense with Tomé, although the Federation is unclear about what that stance would have been if the Asturian had won the European Championship in Switzerland. She favored Sonia Bermúdez because "she was from the team," and Iraia Iturregi because she knew her and her sporting achievements, in addition to having a very good relationship with Irene Paredes , one of the captains. Some suggest that one of the reasons for the dismissal was the frosty relationship between Montse and the players. This explains why none of them have publicly expressed their gratitude for the coach's dismissal. However, sources at the RFEF report that these messages have been received privately.

An election with doubts

Another unusual moment at the RFEF Board of Directors meeting was that the announcement of the new national team coaches, "the tandem," was not made by the Federation's president but by Reyes Bellver herself. She did so almost unexpectedly, after concluding her presentation of a couple of slides about her project for Spanish women's football.

The choice has raised concerns within the organization itself, which had hoped for a powerful and well-prepared coach, like England's Sarina Wiegman . But that was the proposal put on the table, and in that order. There have even been questions about whether it might not be more appropriate to do it the other way around, with Iturregi as the first team, but it was decided to rely on the "sporting criteria" of the sporting and football directors, even though Irene Ferreras , the only elite coach on the board, disagreed.

Louzán has decided to put women's football in the hands of the Bellver - Pry duo, but if there's a sporting setback, he'll be held accountable. The Spanish national team's next match is the Nations Championship finals in October.