Luis Rubiales: Complaints are piling up against the president of the Spanish Football Federation, and not just because of his forced kiss of the World Cup star

CNN
—

While the buzz surrounding the unwanted kiss revolves around the president of the Spanish Football Federation, Luis Rubiales, some may be surprised to learn that the initial complaint was not made by the woman he kissed, but by a man who was watching the match in Madrid.

Miguel Angel Galán was proudly watching Spain win the Women’s World Cup. His joy turned into disgust when Rubiales planted that strong kiss on the team’s star striker, Jenny Hermoso.

Within minutes, Galan, head of the National Center for Training Football Managers, said he was drafting a formal complaint to the Spanish government’s Supreme Council for Sport.

It was a sexist and unacceptable act. “It is a chauvinistic act by a president already plagued by corruption and sexism scandals.” “These are the two structural problems of the union in Spain: corruption and sexism.”

Clearly, there are many in Spain who agree with this. Hundreds have I went out in protest Against Rubiales. The Spanish women’s national team refused to play until Rubiales was dismissed. Hermoso herself confirmed that she did not appreciate or approve of her boss’s rude behavior at the World Cup.

“I felt vulnerable and the victim of an impulsive, sexist and misplaced act,” she said. In the current situation.

Rubiales initially tried to stop the damage by recording a half-hearted video apology. But when that did not calm public anger, he redoubled his efforts at a widely broadcast meeting of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) and He defiantly refused to resignAmid the applause of the audience, most of whom were male. In his final statement, he said he had made “some obvious mistakes” but had been treated unfairly.

Since Galan filed that first complaint against Rubiales on August 20, the day of the World Cup final, 15 more complaints have been filed with the CSD, by organizations and individuals, ranging from allegations of sexual assault to abuse of power, according to a CSD spokesperson. . In his latest statements, Rubiales has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

Although he has an official role, Galán is unofficially an arch-enemy of Rubiales and the Spanish Football Federation, with Galán making it his mission to root out corruption.

He told CNN he had filed more than 50 complaints, some of which led to the arrest of the former federation president — Ángel María Villar, who oversaw Spanish football for nearly 30 years — on corruption charges, and the walls of Galan’s modest Madrid office were papered over. With the headlines of football scandals highlighted. He told CNN that the uproar over the kiss is just the beginning of a longer conflict.

“What must be done now is to hold new and clean elections, so that women can participate in the institution,” Galan told CNN, referring to the upcoming vote for the presidency of the Spanish Football Federation. Then, through these elections in the Union, there can finally be political renewal.

As the scandal grew, even Rubiales’ family members turned against him. His uncle and former chief of staff, Juan Rubiales, told Spanish newspaper El Mundo that he witnessed his nephew using Spanish Football Federation funds to host private parties and romantic vacations, in addition to soliciting kickbacks from Saudi officials to host the Spanish Super Cup in Saudi Arabia. .

“I wasn’t surprised at all,” Juan Rubiales told El Mundo about the kiss. “He is a very arrogant man and did not behave as a president should. Instead of being a political leader, he wanted to be a warrior who saw ghosts and enemies everywhere. In the end, his worst enemy was himself.

CNN has reached out to both Luis Rubiales and the Spanish Football Federation regarding the allegations made by Juan Rubiales. Neither of them responded.

When the furor over the kiss broke, Spain’s public prosecutor had already been investigating Rubiales for influence peddling and bribery since last summer, according to CSD documents obtained by CNN.

Rubiales has consistently denied all allegations of corruption in the past.

He was provisionally suspended by FIFA during the disciplinary hearing.

Why the broadcaster thinks the Spanish football president’s unwanted kiss with the player is the ‘tip of the iceberg’

Steeped in tradition, the Spanish Football Federation has long controlled the country’s lucrative football fortunes. But the entry of female footballers into the higher professional levels was a catalyst for change as they demanded equal pay and rights, exposing structural problems within Spanish football, says Beatriz Alvarez, president of La Liga, Spain’s top women’s league.

Alvarez said: “The matter is not resolved by the resignation of Luis Rubiales. This requires a process of absolute change and restructuring of the model and concept of the Football Association itself.” “I think there are many people close to Rubiales who are promoting this corrupt system… It is unacceptable, it shows that the whole model has to change more than the president has to change.”

Alvarez, a former soccer player, had her own disagreements with Rubiales.

Months into her new job in La Liga last summer, Alvarez, still nursing a newborn, said she requested a video meeting with Rubiales. But the union president refused, Alvarez says, telling her to focus on being a good stay-at-home mom and delegate her work duties to someone she could meet in his office in person.

She says the unwanted kiss at the World Cup is just an extension of that same situation.

“It doesn’t surprise me. It paints a picture of who Luis Rubiales really is. The person that some of us know privately, but now the whole world can actually see,” she told CNN. “I think it’s divine justice that women’s football, which has been ignored for so long… “His career is what finally took this man out of the federation.”