Mondelo loses the lawsuit against Xargay and Cruz, who denounced their abusive methods

The Court of First Instance number 51 of Madrid has dismissed this Tuesday the lawsuit filed by the former coach of the women's basketball team, Lucas Mondelo, against the players Marta Xargay and Anna Cruz.

Mondelo denounced in his day that the story that the players made in August 2021 in EL PAIS of the consequences they said they had suffered due to the treatment and methods of the coach constituted an interference in their right to honor.

The ex-selector asked that Xargay and Cruz be sentenced to jointly and severally pay compensation of 200,000 euros.

The sentence, before which there is an appeal, condemns Mondelo to pay the costs of the trial.

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Marta Xargay: "I had to put the person before the athlete"

Anna Cruz: "It made my life impossible"

“I lost the sense of reality, of what I was like.

She weighed 67 kilos, and I am 1.82m tall and she called me fat.

I tell it to help the girls, "explained Xargay in his story, in which she confessed to having suffered from bulimia.

Anna Cruz, for her part, described the coach's methods that led her to leave the national team.

“She made my life impossible.

The psychological abuse of her caused me stress and depression,” she noted.

The ruling, which dismisses Mondelo's lawsuit, supports the players' account of the methods suffered.

“Not everything goes to win, and winning cannot justify everything.

The medals cannot be so expensive, ”Cruz said in her testimony.

“There are limits that should never be crossed and he took me to a very

”, Xargay pointed out.

Two testimonies that denounced the insane dynamics, and the harmful environments and controls, as a legacy for future generations.

After evaluating the statements given by the witnesses of the parties and the conclusions of the two forensic psychologists who intervened in the trial, the magistrate accepts in the sentence the position maintained by the defenses of Marta Xargay and Anna Cruz, represented, respectively, by the lawyers Carlos Mascort Yglesias and Yago Vázquez Moraga.

The judge completely dismisses Mondelo's claim, 54, considering that the players' opinions are protected by their right to freedom of expression.

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The 'Mondelo method' and the journey from podium to trauma

“We have to break the silence and set limits”

Among other reasons, the magistrate considers that, in view of the context in which they were made, the factual support on which they are based and the general interest of the matter, the expressions used by the players are neither pejorative nor insulting, nor do they exceed the limits of their right to freedom of expression and opinion, which is why they represent a legitimate exercise of it.

For this reason, the magistrate upholds the players' request and dismisses the claim, as also requested by the Public Prosecutor's Office itself, which in the conclusions of the trial also requested the dismissal of Mondelo's claim.

The first warning light that something serious was happening in the women's basketball team was lit by Anna Cruz on January 11, 2021. That day, the 35-year-old player from Barcelona, ​​WNBA champion in 2015 and 158 caps (eight medals), announced his goodbye to the team with a forceful statement.

“The family is not treated like that”, she recounted in her farewell text, without citing Mondelo, but leaving no doubt as to whom she was referring to.

Cruz's was the second in a sequence of withdrawals of illustrious players that was inaugurated, in May 2020, by Marta Xargay, when she was 29 years old, a member of the legendary group that won seven consecutive medals between 2013 and 2019, with 147 caps.

“I need to catch my breath.

I did not enjoy it”, Xargay said to explain a then temporary resignation,

In between, Laura Nicholls (9 medals in 197 caps) also closed her way in the selection for personal reasons.

Three of the most successful players in the history of Spanish women's basketball were left out of last summer's challenge, in which the team faced the European Championships in Valencia and the Tokyo Games consecutively, with only 25 days between them. another appointment.

An unprecedented challenge in which Spain fell in the quarterfinals in both championships.

On August 6, two days after the elimination of the women's team at the Games, the Spanish Basketball Federation announced Mondelo's dismissal in a statement explaining that he decided to "accept one of the clauses of his contract" and , "given the non-achievement of the sporting objectives that appear in it", resolve the commitment with the coach, who in October 2020 had been renewed until 2024. The testimonies of Xargay and Cruz, collected before the Games and whose publication was postponed so as not to interfere in the dynamics of the selection, they had Mondelo's reply before the court, which now dismisses their request.The coach – who in April conquered the Japanese league with the Toyota Antelopes and was chosen as the best coach of the tournament – ​​reached an economic pact with the FEB in November 2021 to avoid the labor lawsuit he filed for unfair dismissal, and sued via civil to the players.

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