Spain fans give verdict on who to blame for World Cup 2018 failure
Lopetegui, Florentino, Rubiales, Hierro, the players... The premature elimination from the 2018 World Cup in Russia angered many, so we asked fans who they felt was to blame.
Every failure tends to be followed by a flood of analysis, criticism and, of course, finger pointing. In Spain's most recent debacle, their early exit from the 2018 World Cup after a lacklustre performance against their negative-thinking Russian hosts, the readers of as.com were asked whose door they would lay the blame. Their answer was clear: Luis Rubiales, with the next in line being Florentino Pérez.
Rubiales blamed for Spain exit
In the survey we asked the simple question, 'Who was responsible for Spain's elimination?' Rubiales, president of the RFEF, received 52.5% of the votes (108,752). After him came the Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez with 25.1% (52,113 votes). The two presidents got embroiled in an unexpected relationship in June with the Madrid club announcing that then-Spain manager Julen Lopetegui would be the successor to Zinedine Zidane. That decision to make it public just a few days before Spain's first game in Russia led to the national coach being fired from his position (the Rubiales call that won him this vote), replaced by Fernando Hierro.
The rest of the 207,293 votes were distributed among the other options: the players (28,204, 13.6%), Julen Lopetegui (12,088, 5.8%) and Fernando Hierro (6,136, 3.0%).
