Almost 24 hours after the major controversy sparked by the kiss on the mouth of Luis Rubiales, the president of the Spanish Football Federation, on the player Jenni Hermoso during the World Cup celebrations, the president had no choice but to leave the stage offer their explanations. “I have to apologize, there’s no other option, is there?” Rubiales began in a statement distributed by his agency this Monday afternoon. “And moreover, learn from it and understand that as the president of such an important institution as the Federation, you have to be more careful, especially during ceremonies,” the leader added.
The severe criticism he received forced him to change his statements. Still in Australia, shortly after the team won the World Cup, Rubiales expressed himself in a very different way. “Let’s ignore the idiots and the stupid. It’s a highlight of two friends celebrating something. We’re not for nonsense, despite what I’ve been through. We’ll enjoy the good and not even tell me about losers who don’t know how to see the positive. A thing that has no evil… If there are fools, let them carry on with their nonsense. “Let’s not listen to them,” he told Cadena Cope before boarding the plane back to Spain.
A few hours later and in the face of the great uproar, in which politicians even called for his resignation, the speech and tone of the association president was different. “When I say it strikes me as idiotic, it’s because no one here has made it even remotely significant, but out there they did. That’s why I would like to apologize to these people, because if it is seen differently from the outside, they certainly have their reasons. Given the biggest achievement in our history in women’s football, and one of the biggest ever, that dampened the celebration a bit,” he said in statements distributed by the association.
The Minister of Culture and Sport, Miquel Iceta, was also among the reactions to his kiss to Jenni Hermoso this Monday. “The first thing you have to do is explain and make excuses,” the minister said in an interview from Sydney on RNE’s Las mañanas. “Especially those of us who have public responsibilities have to be extremely careful because we’re sending a message to society and the message is equality, it’s respect and so we have to avoid any circumstance that can be interpreted as a code of prevalence.” is not the one who commands, who forces a kiss, that can’t be […]. “I think it’s unacceptable to kiss a player on the lips to congratulate her,” he added.
📺 LIVE TV | Valid (Canary Islands Coalition): “The famous kiss of Rubiales … are unfortunate things, a legacy of macho attitudes with which nothing happened in the past. Congratulate me with respect and without climax. We replay roles that are not allowed.” https://t.co/zcKQOK2mGh pic.twitter.com/3qgtYYESF0
– THE COUNTRY (@el_pais) August 21, 2023
He wasn’t the only one. The deputy of the Canary Coalition Cristina Valido called the kiss ‘unhappy’. “Inheritance of macho attitudes that historically have not happened. Congratulate me respectfully and pointlessly. We repeat roles that are not allowed,” he said this Monday. The Secretary General of the Sports Department of the Generalitat and ERC MP, Anna Caula, has used a similar adjective: “inadmissible”. And he also called for Rubiales’ resignation in an interview on Catalunya Radio, in which he explained that the President of the Federation “must have very conscientious manners” and that the kiss has to do with a power situation: “This It’s not just about Football, on the contrary, it’s about the fact that the looks are still not the same and we still have a lot of work to do. Tània Verge, Minister for Equality and Feminism, also in Catalonia, has declared that it is “shameful and unbearable” to “force a kiss and justify it”. and is a “descriptive picture of rape culture”.
The application for resignation was also made Ernest Urtasun, Sumar’s spokesman who posted on Twitter: “Rubiales should hand in his resignation tomorrow. The image he projected onto the world is one of repulsive machismo. You cannot get away with it.” Socialist Adrián Barbón, President of Asturias, wrote: “There is no possible justification for an unwanted kiss. No matter how some of them are doing, it is an absolute lack of respect and an abuse that neither the moment nor the euphoria nor the joy justify.”
Irene Montero, the acting Minister for Equal Opportunities, was present on Sunday one of the first political representatives to deal with what was happening: “Let’s not assume that giving a kiss without consent is something that happens.” It is a form of sexual violence from which women suffer daily and so far invisibly and which we cannot normalize. It is the task of society as a whole. approval in focus. Only yes is yes”. This was followed shortly thereafter by Social Rights Minister Ione Belarra: “What we all think: if they do this while the whole of Spain is watching, what will they not do in private?” Sexual violence against women must end. A hug to the champions!”
The non-consensual kiss has not only crossed politics and social networks in Spain, it has also been picked up by media around the world, such as The Guardian or The New York Times, which speak of “the memory of sexism, which is uncomfortable for many “ speak Has women’s football suffered?”; Bloomberg has also commented; and CNN, The Telegraph, Chron or L’Equipe, which headlined last night ‘The head of the Spanish FA forcibly kisses a player on the mouth’.