On August 20, the joy of Spain’s win in the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup shifted for player Jenni Hermoso after Luis Rubiales, president of the Spanish Football Association, grabbed her for a kiss in celebration, unwanted by her.
Hermoso, player 10 and forward on the Spain Women’s National Football Team, shared on her social media that “Simply put, I was disrespected.” The presidents of the country’s regional soccer federation are calling on Rubiales to resign for his inappropriate behavior and have since suspended him as of August 27th, but Rubiales claimed that what he did was a mistake, but that it was consensual. On Friday, August 25th, Rubiales held a speech in which he refused to resign which earned backlash from players, politicians, union officials, and even the United Nation.
How are other people reacting? For one, Rubiales’ own mother started a hunger strike after locking herself in a church to protest the media’s treatment of her son. A protester from Northern Ireland told Reuters “We cannot express our joy as women without having some man interrupt it and spoil it and take it for his own. This was meant to be a celebration of women’s sports, the improvements that we have made.”
From a local standpoint, Sergio Rodriguez is a Junior at Hidden Valley who started following women’s soccer since the beginning of this year’s 2023 Women’s World Cup. He shares that “I have heard of what happened with the Spanish Soccer Team,” and on the actions taken against Rubiales, he believes “it was the right decision.”
