Spain players reach breakthrough with the RFEF: 21 will remain with the squad

Twenty-one of the 23 players called up by Spain coach Montse Tomé have shown their "willingness" to remain part of the World Cup winner's training camp and will travel to Gothenburg to play Sweden in the Nations League opener this Friday, according to the president of the Consejo Superior de Deportes (CSD), Víctor Francos.

"Twenty-one players have shown their willingness to stay," Francos told the media after meeting with the players for almost six hours in a hotel in the Valencian town of Oliva.

"I have to be honest, the players are in a complicated moment and I think it is good news to say that the women's national team will play the two matches with guarantees and victories."

The CSD president said that he was "very grateful for the gesture" from the players.

"I think it honours them," he added. "And I want to be blunt about one thing, there are two who don't feel up to it, but there should be maximum respect for all of them. We have a great team, world champions and we have to have respect for all the players."

The official, who stressed that this meeting took place in a "friendly tone" and where all parties were able to "speak with absolute freedom", explained that the two players "have requested the possibility of leaving the training camp for reasons of lack of morale and personal discomfort."

Francos said: "This is absolutely respectable and the CSD, the RFEF and the coach have agreed that the formula to be used does not involve sanctions, we don't want to get into a drift of sanctions."

Francos reiterated that although the law "says that you have to be sanctioned" if you don't go with the national team, the government has always been clear that "it didn't want to do that and that it was going to try to avoid it."