The Spanish women’s professional football league has filed a complaint against the head of the country’s football association for inappropriate behavior during the Women’s World Cup final.
Liga F asked Spain’s High Council of Sports — a government body in charge of overseeing the country’s sports federations — to disqualify Luis Rubiales as the chief of the football association due to obscene gestures in the director’s box during the game, kissing one of the players on the mouth after Spain won, and insulting journalists that asked him about the incident in the aftermath, the league said in a statement on Wednesday evening.
“Having a boss grabbing the head of an employee and kissing her on the mouth is, simply, unacceptable,” the league said. “It’s not only about the kiss. It’s about an attitude that is far removed of our social values. An attitude that has gone down in global sporting history and, more worryingly, will forever be associated to our Women’s National Team.”
A representative for the High Council of Sports confirmed it received the complaint, while a spokesman for the Spanish football association declined to comment.
During celebrations following Spain’s victory at the weekend in the world cup final, Rubiales grabbed forward Jennifer Hermoso’s head and kissed her. She later said she didn’t enjoy it and Rubiales has come under widespread criticism from media, players and political leaders, including from Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. Rubiales issued a video saying he had to apologize because people outside the team hadn’t understood that there was “no bad faith from either party” in the kiss.
“We are working so that acts like the ones we have seen never go unpunished, are sanctioned and the pertinent measures are adopted to protect soccer players from actions that we believe are unacceptable,” Futpro, a union of women football players and which represents Hermoso, said in a statement late Wednesday.
The football association will hold an extraordinary general assembly on Friday to decide the future of Rubiales and it has opened an internal procedure to look into integrity matters on the back of the incident.
(Updates with union statement in sixth paragraph.)
Author: Irene García Pérez and Macarena Muñoz
