Is there a birthday in your family this week? Michael Coy has been trawling through the archives, looking for interesting Spanish personalities whose birthday will fall – or would have fallen – around today’s date.
Luis Rubiales – 23 August, 1977
IT started with a kiss.
On August 20 in 2023, the Spanish women’s football team beat England in Sydney, Australia, to win the Women’s World Cup.
As midfielder Jenni Hermoso came up to the podium to receive her winner’s medal, the president of the RFEF – the Spanish football association – Luis Manuel Rubiales Bejar, grabbed her and kissed her.
So what? People often kiss other people in the wake of winning a trophy, especially if they have worked together to secure the victory.
Well, Rubiales was a man, about to celebrate his 47th birthday, and Jenni was an attractive girl, and much younger. And he was her boss. And the kiss was neither sought nor agreed to. And it wasn’t a peck on the cheek. It was a full-on, mouth-to-mouth, man-to-woman kiss.
Thus began the ‘Caso Rubiales’.
READ MORE: Luis Rubiales avoids jail over ‘non-consensual kiss’ after judge throws out appeal
Spain loves a good scandal, and there hadn’t been one for a while, so the stage was set. But seriously, this was important: it was a good moment for the culture to ask itself: “Are we machista (sexist)?”
Spanish attitudes towards women have improved massively in the last 50 years, but it has to be said that they were starting from a fairly wretched position.
Even today, in bars and night clubs from Salobreña to Santander, a woman who rejects a man’s advances is likely to hear: “I have made it clear that I want to sleep with you. What’s your problem?”
What Rubiales did prompted Spain to face up to some awkward questions.
If a woman doesn’t want to be kissed, is she a strident feminist? Or is she merely exercising a reasonable right?
He made it worse. Faced by a maelstrom of media accusations, he refused to resign. His mother even staged a hunger strike in solidarity.
Five weeks later, he was quietly relieved of his responsibilities and banned from the sport.
But the ‘Caso Rubiales’ rumbles on.
When, in the recent men’s World Cup, US president Donald Trump inserted himself into the action by getting a sent-off American player reprieved, the Spanish press had a field day.
One Andalucian paper published a cartoon showing Trump and Rubiales talking together (neither needed to be identified by name). Rubiales says to Trump: “A red card? That’s nothing. I got a snog!”
In April 2024, he was arrested in Madrid. Rubiales, who will be 50 years old this Sunday, appears to be involved in some corrupt scheme to relocate the Spanish Supercup to Saudi Arabia.
Useful websites, such as the Spanish Government’s violenciagenero.igualdad.gob.es give free advice to young women:
- No means no
- Just because a man is your employer/teacher/coach, he does not have the right to touch you
- If you feel you are being subjected to any form of acoso (bullying, unwanted attention), call the police: you will be treated sympathetically
The ‘Caso Rubiales’ may not exactly rival Watergate, but it might mark Spain’s entry, in terms of social customs, into the 21st century.
Click here to read more Spain News from The Olive Press.
