Isabel's blog

FIFA suspends the president of the Spanish Soccer Federation for the kiss he gave to one of the players after the World Cup final. Since the finale, that one kiss has been the conversation in Spain and the rest of the sports world. During the medal ceremony, Luis Rubiales kisses Spanish player Jennifer Hermoso after he gives her a golden medal. This fragment went all over the world, as this happened when millions of people were watching the ceremony.

At first, under pressure from the Spanish federation, Hermoso says the kiss was friendly. Rubiales also expresses this in a statement. Many people, including Spanish politicians, find this inappropriate and demand that the president resign.

Hermoso and her management later came up with a statement that she did not like the kiss and that it was very inappropriate. She also says that she never gave the president a reason to kiss her. Something he later denied in a statement by the Spanish Soccer Federation. She also says that her earlier statement was written under pressure from the Spanish Soccer Federation and is therefore not true.

A few days later, the Spanish Soccer Federation scheduled an emergency meeting. Everyone expected Rubiales to resign. Nothing turned out to be less true, Rubiales insisted that he did nothing wrong and repeated 5 times that he is not going to resign.

Because Rubiales is not going to resign, 83 Spanish soccer players, including the 23 World Cup players, have said that they no longer want to play for Spain as long as this board is there. Hermoso also receives support from all over the world. Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan, among others, have said that they are behind her.

Playing a tournament or game becomes difficult without players, especially if you also do not have any staff members. All eleven of Jorge Vilda’s staff have said that they will resign. The only one left of the Spanish selection is the national coach himself, Jorge Vilda.

This incident did not come out of the blue. Last year, 15 players of the selection wrote a letter to the Spanish Soccer Federation that they no longer wanted to play under the current national coach Jorge Vilda. In this letter, he was accused, among other things, that players were not allowed to close their room doors at night so that he knew that everyone was in their own room. Players must have found this situation so bad that a large part of them chose not to go to the World Cup. This is in my eyes not something you do because of a small conflict.

It will be interesting to see what the next steps will be. In any case, it seems that Hermoso has all the support on her side and that the Spanish Soccer Federation is pretty much on its own. One thing is clear and that is that something has to change at the Spanish Soccer Federation to ensure that there is a safe working atmosphere for everyone.

I think this article stated clearly what the case is. It is good that they used an expert, Dolors Ribalta Alcalde, to explain why this is such an important issue in Spain. I agree with the article. I think there needs to change something within the Spanish Soccer Federation and I hope that more women will get a more powerful position, so this “kiss incident” will not happen again.