2023-08-27 12:38:01
by Virginia Nesi
Fifa freezes the head of the Football Federation, he accuses Jennifer Hermoso. The players on strike: over 80 announce that they will not show up for new selection calls if the current managers continue to be there
His about-face came after three words repeated five times in a row in the same sentence: “I will not resign, I will not resign.” Yet it seemed that could be the final choice. Instead, after the kiss on the lips torn without consent from the soccer player Jennifer Hermoso and the harassing behavior on the sidelines of Spain’s World Cup triumph against England, Luis Rubiales still thought of remaining at the head of the Spanish Football Federation.
Rubiales does not resign
In the end, he didn’t resign. Despite the protests. Despite the feminist wave on social networks in support of the world champion. And despite pressure from the government he has explicitly said he would take action if Rubiales did not leave office. Socialist premier Pedro Sánchez called the behavior of the RFEF number one “unacceptable” and his apologies “insufficient”. He apologized in a video (“I was wrong, I have to admit it), also to Queen Letizia:” It was a little educational fact.
The suspension of Fifa
So yesterday the Fifa Disciplinary Commission suspended Rubiales for at least 90 days, pending the actual proceedings, “from all activities related to football at national and international level” and forbade him to approach number ten so as not to create other ones pressures. The myth of Me Too in Spanish football it has been on for days. The largest women’s football union in Spain, FutPro, has begun, with a statement, to condemn the locker room gestures of the number one of the Real Federación Española de Fútbol.
The FutPro union
Hermoso had entrusted herself to FutPro, together with her agency TMJ, on Wednesday to defend herself. “At no time did I consent to the kiss she gave me, nor did I ever say so,” the player said. She specified it clearly because some statements, which the player then contested, had reaffirmed that she too was consenting. The Football Federation has denied and accused Hermoso not only of having been “kidnapped” by the union that represents it, but also of “distorting reality”, specifying in a very detailed statement (later deleted from the website) that, in that kiss between the number ten and the number one of the football federation, the consensus was there.
Fragmented nation
Now Jorge Vilda’s national team remains fragmented: 11 members of the technical staff have resigned due to “demonstrations by the RFEF’s top manager”. More than 80 players (including world champions and other players) have announced that they will not present themselves for new selection calls if the current managers continue to be there. Women’s football is increasingly on Hermoso’s side. Also the coach of the men’s national team Louis of the Source he changed his mind. It took 24 hours. From the applause from the front rows to Rubiales’ speeches during Friday’s Extraordinary Assembly, to “firmly condemning the wrong and inappropriate behavior of the president”. De la Fuente said: “The gestures made by Luis Rubiales do not respect the minimum protocol that must be followed in these acts of celebration and are not educational, nor appropriate for a person who was representing all of Spanish football.”
The slogans in support of Hermoso
Before the match against Almeria, yesterday the Cadiz players entered the field with a banner: “We are all Jenni”. And from the stands many shouted: «Rubiales resign». Because that kiss, she, Jenni Hermoso actually never asked for it: it’s unwanted, intrusive, the product of a harassment. In Corriere, the writer Rosa Montero comments: «Rubiales’ attitude is unpresentable and absolutely inadmissible. It is the expression of a monumental machismo and the clear demonstration of the sexism to which women in women’s sport and more concretely in women’s football continue to be subjected. I hope this well-deserved triumph changes reality a bit.”
Controversies and accusations
The “case of the kiss”, from the day it exploded, has progressively stopped the country: controversies, accusations, mass mobilizations and positions taken. But immediately after the match it seemed different: during the celebrations in the locker room, in a live Instagram, Hermoso herself had commented on the president’s gesture in an ironic tone: «But I didn’t like it eh (the kiss ed)». In the same locker room, the footballer laughed when Rubiales joked that they were getting married in Ibiza. Shortly thereafter, the president of the Football Federation explained on Radio Marca: “When two people have an unimportant show of affection, we cannot pay attention to nonsense”.
He thought he’d let it go by minimizing number ten then he decided to report. Groups of women followed her in squares, from Madrid to Santander. And the billboards – “We will win again” – still highlight a need: no longer to be silenced.
August 27, 2023 (change August 27, 2023 | 11:46 am)
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