Spaniards celebrated their nation’s first Girls’s World Cup victory on Sunday afternoon by holding dance events within the streets and sharing their giddy delight.
However it was a kiss seen world wide that was the discuss of social media.
Amid the nationwide jubilation, many had been jolted by an impromptu kiss planted on the Spanish ahead Jennifer Hermoso by the president of Spain’s soccer federation, Luis Rubiales, throughout the medals ceremony, an disagreeable reminder to lots of the sexism scandals which have plagued Spanish girls’s soccer.
After the Spanish gamers defeated England 1-0 and lined up onstage in Sydney, Australia, to gather their medals earlier than lifting the World Cup trophy, Mr. Rubiales enthusiastically grabbed Ms. Hermoso, kissed her on the cheeks after which kissed her absolutely on the lips, video of the encounter confirmed. Spain’s Queen Letizia was onstage on the time.
Later, in one other video, Ms. Hermoso is seen apparently making her distaste recognized, responding, “Hey, however I didn’t like that!”
The video of what many concluded had been an undesirable smooch was broadly shared on social media, spurring confusion amongst many Spaniards and prompting others to denounce it as extremely inappropriate habits. Some called it disgraceful and proof of lingering sexism in soccer. Others demanded that Mr. Rubiales resign.
As of Sunday evening, he had not responded to the criticism. The soccer federation didn’t instantly reply to an e mail searching for remark from Mr. Rubiales because it was late in Spain.
The kissing episode revived reminiscences of the mistreatment of Spain’s feminine soccer gamers. For 27 years, the ladies’s nationwide workforce had the identical coach, who was notorious for dismissing the gamers as “chavalitas,” or immature ladies. He was dismissed in 2015 after gamers protested.
Present members of the ladies’s nationwide workforce have additionally complained that they’ve been disrespected by high male soccer executives and denied the sort of elite gear and therapy given to the lads’s groups. The ladies have stated that the services the federation offered for them are subpar and that Jorge Vilda, their coach, fostered an oppressive office surroundings, one by which the gamers’ each transfer was monitored by his workers.
Final fall, many gamers revolted towards the coach and federation, accusing them of mistreatment and withdrawing from consideration for the nationwide workforce. Ms. Hermoso was seen as having tacitly supported the rebel.
The controversies didn’t cease Spain from profitable this 12 months’s World Cup. However the sudden kiss added one other dimension to the ladies’s victory.
In a reside video posted on Instagram and shared on different social media platforms, Ms. Hermoso is seen celebrating together with her teammates within the locker room after the ultimate and smiling at the same time as she says the kiss was not wished.
Including to the confusion, Mr. Rubiales is heard in one other video telling the gamers that they might be rewarded with a visit to Ibiza for his or her victory and including that it will be a chance to rejoice his “wedding ceremony” to Ms. Hermoso — an obvious reference to the kiss.
There is no such thing as a indication that Mr. Rubiales and Ms. Hermoso are in a relationship.
Nadia Tronchoni, an editor at El País, Spain’s largest newspaper, famous in an opinion piece that Sunday’s victory was “greater than a title” for Spanish girls.
“The ladies, the women of this nation celebrated the truth that our stubbornness has lastly defeated machismo,” she stated, referring to feminine gamers’ lengthy wrestle to be acknowledged. “Rubiales’s kiss to Hermoso reminds us that the street forward is an extended one.”