Kathy Sheridan: That creepy ‘peck’ may be Luis Rubiales’s greatest contribution to sport

It wasn’t just the full-on, public, non-consensual kiss planted on Jenni Hermoso’s lips that crystallised all that women’s football has had to contend with. All too predictably, it became another familiar story about context and pattern brought to a head by a bull-headed powermonger and his enablers. The kiss was just the catalyst.

It was the Trumpian response of the kisser, Luis Rubiales, head of the Spanish football federation, when challenged, that alerted the hitherto disinterested. The bluster, the tactics, the intimidation, the attempted discrediting of the victim, the threats of criminal prosecution.

That narcissism, machismo and self-belief bursting out of one small man is always a sight to behold. Rubiales’s refusal to accept responsibility had him refusing to step down, his mother declaring a hunger strike in a locked church to stop him stepping down, the entire Spanish football federation – which includes Real Madrid and Barcelona, the world’s most valuable soccer teams in 2022, according to Forbes – almost self-destructing to stop him stepping down.

Last week’s big red flag was the spectacle of the women’s and men’s national team managers, Jorge Vilda and Luis de la Fuente, passionately applauding Rubiales’s diatribe – “Did you really think I was going to resign over a peck?”, “The scourge of Spain is false feminism” – at the meeting heralded as his resignation announcement.

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That was the scene which shunted the whole affair well beyond a matter of opinion and into a tableau that bellowed abuse of power.

As public acts of self-incriminating stupidity go, it could hardly have been bettered. As an encapsulation of the desperately lonely, painful, unequal battle women players have been fighting behind closed doors for decades, however, it was truly shocking.

The Spanish women had just won the World Cup after a thrilling tournament. It wasn’t the first time a non-player appropriated victory for himself in international competition: we’ve had our own mighty exemplars. Observe how Rubiales physically imposed himself on the celebration, though. How would a Roy Keane react if a Rubiales kissed him full on the lips?

Social media spewed its no-context response. “F**k feminist [sic]” ; “Just exuberance – totally non-sexual”; “Absolutely ridiculous – only after the PC brigade spoke up did she jump on the bandwagon”; “A kiss is not always a sexual thing ... It’s happened to me many times before mainly as a child!”; “It’s time for male and female football to be totally separate from players, coaches, pundits, federations.”; “What does his wife say?”

Of course, as every sensate adult knows, break-ups are rarely about a single incident. It was the culmination of years of institutionalised humiliation, sexism, bullying and intimidation. In stories that sound too familiar, Spain’s elite women players had long lacked decent training facilities and even jerseys designed for women.

The real question is why “all the women” have to keep pushing the stupid doors as opposed to the likes of Infantino – who was paid about €3.6 million last year to do that actual job?

It was worse than that, though. Last year, 15 players revolted and demanded that Vilda be fired, accusing him and the federation of outdated training methods and an oppressive workplace where his staff monitored the players’ every move. The federation replied as if to recalcitrant toddlers, demanding apologies before they would be allowed back on the team.

Vilda’s predecessor, Ignacio Quereda, who was the women’s team coach for 27 years, was dismissed in 2015 after a full-on players’ mutiny. Quereda’s speciality was to roar at them in public, humiliate them for simple mistakes, call them “chavalitas” (immature little girls) and attack them for their sexual orientation (they needed “an alpha male” in their lives apparently). Veronica Boquete, the AC Milan midfielder, stood up to Quereda and was never called up for the national team again.

Unwanted kiss: why Spanish women say Luis Rubiales has to go

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With Madrid-based reporter Guy Hedgecoe. Presented by Bernice Harrison

Women and girls have to fight to get onto a playing field and once they do, according to Human Rights Watch, they face threats and retaliation, unfair pay, harassment and sexual assault. Every year, Fifa funds each national team an average of $1.5 million intended to build women’s sport but this is often siphoned off by national federations and, according to elite women players who spoke to HRW, is used to fuel corruption and “the most appalling sexual abuse”.

Zambia’s coach and Haiti’s federation president have both been accused of sexual misconduct (which they deny). This year alone, the French federation’s president resigned after a state inspectorate accused him of “inappropriate behaviour ... towards women” and the leading United States professional women’s league banned four coaches for life, citing sexual misconduct as well as sexist and racist abuse. The head of the Spanish women’s footballers’ trade union says that Rubiales once asked her what colour underwear she was wearing.

Of course, Fifa could use its clout to ensure that federations treat women athletes fairly. Instead, just a week ago, its president, Gianni Infantino – addressing “all the women” – told us that to achieve equality, we need to “pick the right battles, convince us men what we have to do. With men, with Fifa, you will find open doors. Just push the doors. They are open.”

[ Spanish football federation calls on Luis Rubiales to ‘immediately resign’ ]

The real question is why “all the women” have to keep pushing the stupid doors as opposed to the likes of Infantino – who was paid about €3.6 million last year to do that actual job?

This is the context of what Luis Rubiales called “the peck”. The great irony is that “the peck” may turn out to be his greatest contribution to world football. Certainly women’s football will never be the same again.