When 'a kiss is not a kiss': Spanish football on trial

What a depressing spectacle is the melodrama now playing at Spain's National Court, said Fernando Palmero in El Mundo (Madrid). Its focus is Luis Rubiales, former president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), who faces up to two-and-a-half years in jail for sexual assault and coercion. His horrific crime? Planting a kiss on footballer Jenni Hermoso as they celebrated Spain's victory at the 2023 Women's World Cup.

Rubiales says it was an "act of affection" to which she had consented; Hermoso says the kiss was non-consensual, and that Rubiales and three other RFEF officials then tried to pressure her into publicly defending him. "That the entire judicial and media machinery is focused on whether a kiss was stolen or not" is proof of something deeply wrong in our society. "Spanish institutions have been poisoned by the pernicious gender ideology introduced by the progressive coalition government" – as if Spain is a misogynistic dystopia, rather than a liberal country where "women and men have the same rights".

It "saddens me", said Carla de La Lá in La Razón (Madrid). I thought feminism was about empowerment; listen to Hermoso and you'd think women are too "fragile" and too "vulnerable" to sustain a mere peck on the mouth during a moment of national jubilation. Clearly, "being a victim is the new black": while Rubiales is facing jail for his transgression, Hermoso is living her best life, flitting from TV shows to PR events where she is lauded as a feminist icon. I can only imagine what victims of serious sexual trauma must think.

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"It was a little kiss", people keep saying, said Ana Requena Aguilar on elDiario.es (Madrid), "a silly thing, a joke". And it's true: the act in itself probably wasn't deeply traumatising. But then, do we really want to live in a society where women are treated as "beings whose personal space and body can be crossed without consequences"?

This isn't really about the kiss, said Jordi Gracia in El País (Madrid). It's about calling out "the chauvinist arrogance at the heart of male power in Spanish football". Female footballers have had to fight for decades for recognition in the game. "Not long ago they did not exist": there were no competitions, no broadcasts of their matches, no interviews. Eventually, the boy's club running Spanish football "admitted women to the party": clearly though, those men believed they deserved a reward for such good behaviour – to wit, being able to treat female footballers however they liked. That chauvinist arrogance is now on trial.