World Cup kiss echoes abuse suffered by millions of women, says Spain’s equality minister

Luis Rubiales’s unsolicited kissing of Jenni Hermoso is just one instance of the abuse suffered by millions of women around the world, Spain’s acting equality minister has said.

Irene Montero described the incident, in which the Spanish football president grabbed the player by the head and planted a kiss on her lips at the Women’s World Cup final medal ceremony, as a “lower-intensity” form of sexual violence that is often invisible and normalised in society.

Montero said: “This is something suffered by millions of women in Spain and around the world. Unfortunately, these forms of sexual violence, these lower-intensity types of violence such as unconsented kisses, touching on public transport or sexual harassment, are usually invisible and very normalised.”

Montero was among the first to call out Rubiales’s behaviour on social media, sparking a reckoning that has gripped Spain and much of the world for nearly two weeks.

“So many women who have suffered sexual violence are told, ‘Hey, it wasn’t that bad, you better not report it, don’t raise your voice.’ Or if they report it, they’re blamed: ‘Hey, you were drunk, you initiated it, look how you were dressed’,” said Montero. “But this time the majority of society – not just feminists or women but also many men – said, ‘Se acabó [it’s over].’”

Spain has long been home to one of the world’s most vibrant feminist movements, credited for catapulting the country to the vanguard when it comes to tackling issues such as violence against women, sexual consent and representation in politics. But “Kiss-gate”, as some Spanish media have taken to calling it, has shone a spotlight on a corner of Spain that has long resisted change.

After initially dismissing people criticising the kiss as “idiots and stupid”, Rubiales expressed his regret to those who had been “hurt by this”. The country’s acting prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, swiftly slammed the apology as insufficient.

Outrage continued to mount, compounded by images showing Rubiales grabbing his crotch as the country’s 16-year-old princess stood nearby and hoisting player Athenea del Castillo over his shoulders as he celebrated the women’s win.

On Friday, the country’s Administrative Tribunal for Sport said it considered Rubiales’ behaviour to be a serious violation of the country’s sports law. If the tribunal had seen it as “very serious”, the government could have moved to suspend Rubiales immediately.

The tribunal’s decision suggests that if Fifa had not provisionally suspended Rubiales, the football chief would still be at the helm of the federation.

Rubiales has sought to portray the kiss as consensual. In a new statement published by Spanish media late on Friday, Rubiales said he had “made some obviously mistakes which I sincerely regret”, but he repeated this claim and lashed out at what he described as an “unprecedented political and media lynching”. He vowed to continue to defend himself in order to “prove the truth”.

Hermoso has rejected any suggestion that the kiss was consensual, saying it took place “without any type of consent from my part”.

Describing the kiss as the “straw that broke the camel’s back”, Hermoso added: “Attitudes like this have been part of the national team’s daily life for years.”

The saga has laid bare the best and worst of Spain, said Irene Lozano, a former head of the country’s national sports council.

“We’ve seen the old, out-of-date, machista side of football,” she told Spanish media. “But the women, with their success against all odds, have achieved great success and the reaction and support from Spanish society shows the awareness that exists in Spain.”

Lozano detailed her own run-ins with Rubiales, who is president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation and one of Uefa’s vice-presidents, saying: “Rubiales’s language is that of threats, blackmail and contempt; with women even more so.”

Her words hinted at how for many it has become impossible to untangle Rubiales’s actions from the deep divide, laid bare last year, between Spain’s football establishment and its female players.

In September 2022, 15 players had refused to play for the head coach, Jorge Vilda, described by some as controlling and overbearing, in an attempt to have their conditions improved. Seemingly at the heart of the feud was the sentiment that the federation – led by Rubiales – did not truly believe in women’s football. The federation threw its support behind Vilda, who described the accusations as “unjust”.

This time, however, things felt different as a society that has long championed women’s equality set its sights on female football, said Beatriz Álvarez, the president of Spain’s professional women’s league.

“It has transcended the sports world,” said Álvarez. “All of a sudden it wasn’t just us who have long suffered this situation in sports talking about this, it was the 80-year-old woman at a bus stop or the hairdressers in their shops.”

Spain’s female athletes have seized on the moment. The country’s association of women in professional sport said this week that it had seen the number of complaints over inequality soar fivefold, while on Friday, the unions representing players in the country’s professional women’s football league called for a strike. Among the issues they raised was the annual minimum wage in the first division, which sits at €16,000 (£13,700), compared with €182,000 for men.

While the push to oust Rubiales continues, he has become a global symbol of how a system designed when football was firmly a men’s sport has failed to address the needs of female football, said Álvarez. “The whole model is rotten. It needs to change from the bottom up.”

On Monday, days after its members applauded Rubiales as he hit out at “false feminism” and vowed to stay on as federation chief, Spanish football’s governing body said it had demanded his immediate resignation. The statement acknowledged that it was time for a “new phase”.

The organisation – which counts just six women among its 140 members – may have little choice, given a law due to come into effect next year that will require it to count at least 40% women among its leadership.

As the power structures long in place start to deteriorate, some have sought to capitalise on the changing tides. On Friday, the coach of Spain’s national men’s football team asked for forgiveness over the applause he gave to Rubiales.

“I don’t think I have to resign; I think I have to ask for forgiveness,” said Luis de la Fuente. “I made a human error. It was inexcusable.” Days earlier, the women’s coach, Vilda, echoed a similar sentiment after he was caught on camera clapping.

Álvarez said she hoped the changes unleashed would be enough to compensate for the way in which the scandal has overshadowed the women’s team’s incredible win.

“I think that right now the players feel that despite what they achieved at the World Cup they’ve been pushed into the background,” she said. “But I think that as the years go by, they’ll understand that they’ve won much more than a World Cup.”