Almost exactly 18 months ago the Spanish women’s football team lifted the World Cup in Sydney. But one brief, controversial episode during the ensuing celebrations triggered street protests, fuelled political debate and, finally, led to criminal charges and a court case that has just finished.
That now-notorious moment came when the former president of the Spanish football federation Luis Rubiales congratulated the striker Jenni Hermoso by putting his hands on her face and kissing her on the lips as the winners’ medals were being handed out.
After the kiss there was an almost immediate backlash against Rubiales in Spain. His initial response was to call critics “stupid arses” before back-pedalling and filming an apology in which he insisted it had been merely a “natural, normal” gesture to which “nobody has given the slightest importance”.
But that was not the case. Hermoso herself appeared to give it significance by saying it had not been consensual despite Rubiales’s assertion to the contrary.
Rubiales on trial: How the World Cup kissing controversy made it to court
Meanwhile, as a campaign gathered pace, both online and on the streets, for Rubiales to resign the row utterly overshadowed the achievement of the Spanish women’s team. Prime minister Pedro Sánchez said the case showed that “in our country there is still a long way to go when it comes to equality and respect between women and men”.
After defiantly clinging to his post, while denouncing the “false feminism” that he claimed was persecuting him, eventually Rubiales resigned. But state prosecutors had by then already opened an investigation into him for possible sexual assault, leading to the trial which has just ended.
Rubiales and three former colleagues, including the World Cup-winning coach Jorge Vilda, also faced charges of coercion for allegedly trying to pressure Hermoso into saying publicly that the kiss had been consensual. If found guilty of both charges the former federation boss could face a 2½-year jail sentence.
As the trial has unfolded the events in question have been revisited in painstaking detail in court. One expert witness was a lip reader, who interpreted Rubiales’s words from a video recorded moments before he kissed Hermoso. According to the expert, the then-federation president had asked: “Can I give you a kiss?” However, the player’s response was not on film. Also the movements and actions of federation officials were examined to decide whether or not Rubiales oversaw a campaign to harass Hermoso into changing her story.
The player herself told the judge that she had felt she was being kissed by her boss and that this “tainted one of the happiest days of my life”.
Many observers outside Spain have asked why the kiss triggered such an overwhelming response. The answer is partly because it was live on television and viewed by millions around the world, making it an instant talking point. But also gender equality and sexual consent were being fiercely debated in the public sphere as the left-wing government’s reforms in those areas faced criticism from the far right among others. These were already national talking points and Rubiales’s kiss fed into the discussion.
There is another factor that has perhaps been overlooked when trying to understand the opprobrium Rubiales faced. Shortly before kissing Hermoso the federation boss was pictured in the stands, a few feet away from Queen Letizia and her daughter Sofía, grabbing his crotch and shouting as he celebrated. Spaniards are acutely sensitive about what the rest of the world thinks of their country, and many people who had little interest in the debate over consent and sexual politics were simply embarrassed that this man was representing them.
“I behaved like an athlete celebrating a victory and should have behaved more according to my institutional role,” a contrite Rubiales told the court of his actions as the game ended. “I was wrong.”
But Rubiales has not been put on trial for being a lout; the charges are more specific than that. In summing up his lawyer said that “a sin should not be confused with a crime”.
There is no fixed date for the verdict. While the judge ponders it he will be aware how socially explosive a ruling in this kind of trial can be. In 2018 five men in the so-called “Wolfpack case” were given nine-year jail sentences for “sexual abuse” of a woman in Pamplona, causing thousands of people to take to the streets to demand tougher convictions. The decision was reviewed and the accused were convicted of rape in a ruling that was seen to have been swayed by Spain’s new social mores.
The Rubiales case bears little comparison to that of the Wolfpack in terms of the severity of the charges. But as a potential benchmark for Spanish society it could also end up being extremely significant.
