AFE rejects "the alleged pressures" exerted by FUTPRO on soccer players of the national team

MADRID, 21 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Association of Spanish Soccer Players (AFE) denounced this Friday "the alleged pressures" to which several internationals of the national team could have been subjected so that they did not attend the calls and the role that the FUTPRO union would have played in this regard.

"The AFE has had first-hand knowledge of the alleged pressures to which the soccer players (of the last call) of the Absolute women's team were subjected last Wednesday by the FUTPRO union," the AFE stressed this Friday in a statement.

The association thus responds to information published by the newspaper 'Marca' and warns that these pressures would be "aimed at faking a situation of emotional affectation to obtain a medical report that would allow them not to be called up to join the national team", so that in this way the 15 who had requested not to be summoned in the last concentration could return.

For this reason, "given the seriousness of these alleged facts", AFE considers that this action is "intolerable", especially for dealing with an issue such as mental health in which "it has been helping soccer players who suffer from this type of ailments". "We know the tear they cause in any person and the seriousness of them for the president of a union to trivialize something so delicate," he warned.

For the body chaired by David Aganzo, the role that Amanda Gutiérrez, president of FUTPRO, "a practicing lawyer" could have played, would be, if true, "extremely serious, since it could be considered that it is inducing the soccer players of the selection to commit an illegal act".

"We must remember that the Sports Law establishes the obligation for federated athletes to attend the calls of the national sports teams to participate in international competitions or to prepare for them," AFE pointed out.

The union recalls that what happened could be "an event of extreme gravity" by putting "the sports career of these soccer players at stake, who could suffer serious damage, provided for in article 65 of the Disciplinary Code of the Royal Spanish Football Federation ( RFEF)".

"AFE categorically rejects these alleged behaviors and supports all the soccer players of the Spanish team, so that they are not pressured to accept a situation that harms them directly, for the benefit of the particular interests of a union, which has been shown not coincide with the feeling of the majority of the soccer players", sentenced the association.