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”.