Spanish prosecutors mentioned on Monday that they’d opened an investigation into whether or not Luis Rubiales, the president of the nation’s soccer federation, may very well be charged with committing an act of sexual aggression after he kissed one of many feminine staff’s gamers on the lips after they gained the World Cup this month.
Opposition has steadily grown in response to Mr. Rubiales’s conduct and his strident protection of it, and the group he heads, identified formally as Royal Spanish Soccer Federation, has discovered itself underneath rising stress to take motion. The group was assembly later Monday to debate the problem.
Mr. Rubiales was proven on video after the World Cup remaining in Sydney on Aug. 20 kissing one of many staff’s star gamers, Jennifer Hermoso, and though he apologized the day after, he then took a defiant stand later within the week.
He mentioned Ms. Hermoso had lifted him off his toes and “moved me near her physique,” accusing his critics of “false feminism” and saying he was the sufferer of “social assassination.” Ms. Hermoso countered in an announcement, “At no time did I consent to the kiss that he gave me.”
The Spanish staff has just lately discovered success on the highest ranges of ladies’s soccer, after reaching the Ladies’s World Cup for the primary time in 2015, however the occasions involving Mr. Rubiales have been a reminder that this system has been affected by sexism and different scandals.
Mr. Rubiales is a vp of UEFA, soccer’s governing physique in Europe, and has been main the joint bid by Spain, Portugal, Morocco and probably Ukraine to host the 2030 World Cup. FIFA, soccer’s world governing physique, had already suspended him from the game for 90 days. Your entire feminine staff and dozens of different gamers signed a joint assertion saying they’d not take the sphere to play for Spain “if the present managers proceed.”
Criticism of Mr. Rubiales has come from the federal government, too. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez described his conduct as “unacceptable,” and the secretary of the opposition Individuals’s Social gathering, Cuca Gamarra, referred to as the kiss “shameful.”
Gamers from all over the world confirmed their help for Ms. Hermoso, typically utilizing the hashtag “se acabó,” or “it’s over,” after a social media submit by Alexia Putellas, a member of the Spanish nationwide staff.