The Royal Spanish Football Federation, also known as RFEF, is the governing body of football in Spain. Over the last week and a half, there have been serious problems with the president of the RFEF, Luis Rubiales.
After the women's World Cup final when Spain won, it was seen on television that the president Luis Rubiales forcibly kissed one of the players, Jennifer Hermoso, on the lips after she received her medal. A moment that is supposed to be the happiest of an athlete's career, was ruined because of what he did.
Luis Rubiales came out and stated it was wrong and he shouldn’t have done that to Jenni, but this was not an apology. A few days after his first statement, he held a conference where he stated it was a completely consensual kiss, and it wasn’t wrong. The victim, Jenni, disagreed and there have been actions to get him fired from the RFEF.
The whole Spanish football team has come out and stated they will not continue to play for their team if Rubiales is still the president of the Spanish Football Federation. FIFA has suspended Rubiales and even the Prime Minister of Spain has come out against him, and he still has not stepped down.
When Rubiales came out on Friday to speak, that was him essentially doubling down saying he is not leaving, and will not go down without a fight. This then led to the Vice President of the Spanish Football Federation and 11 members of the Spanish women's national program to resign.
After all of this, the Football Federation came out and said Hermoso was lying and it was a consensual kiss. Since this statement, Spanish prosecutors are investigating the soccer president who has kissed the World Cup winner. He still refuses to resign after heavy criticism from his unsolicited kiss with Jenni Hermoso following the World Cup win.
Things like this should not be happening in women's sports and unfortunately it is; this kiss wasn’t acceptable and if the whole team and the FIFA federation are against the president, he must be fired.
There has been so much love and support for Jenni, from all around the world and many women soccer players have been wearing tape saying “Contigo Jenni.”
Photo credits: By Real Federación Española de Fútbol (RFEF): https://www.rfef.es/, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=107711237
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