With barely three months to go to the World Cup, coaches should be fine-tuning tactics, administrators finessing schedules, and players focusing on form and fitness.
Instead, the teams ranked fifth, sixth and seventh in the world have been mired in internal conflict.
In France, player power led to the removal of the coach, Corinne Diacre, after five-and-a-half divisive and unsuccessful years. In Canada the federation’s president, Nick Bontis, resigned following a bitter dispute over pay and conditions with the Olympic gold-medal winning squad, while Spain’s coachJorge Vilda has so far survived, despite16 senior players refusing to play under him.
Vilda took have not kept pace with their own progress, reportedly blaming this on training methods, inadequate preparation and coaching.
