Rubiales Kiss Photos Go Viral When Spain’s World Cup Win Sparks Debate!
Did Rubiales’ kiss photos ignite a viral storm amid Spain’s World Cup victory, fueling a heated debate? The passionate smooches captured hearts and headlines, but did they overshadow the team’s triumph or add to the celebration?
The post-win discourse heats up as fans question the balance between personal moments and sporting achievement. This news definitely surprise you, you’ll want to read it to the end.
Rubiales Has a History of Making Controversial Statements!
The Women’s World Cup final on Sunday was a great win for Spain. It should have been a happy day for the players who had “grown up thinking football didn’t belong to us,” as captain Irene Paredes said on Saturday (19 August 2023). These were the players who had braved Spain’s machista society, devoted their lives to soccer, and brought their country to the top of the sport.
But instead, it made me feel a lot of different things. Then, afterward, the head of the Spanish soccer federation, Luis Rubiales, caused trouble. During the usual World Cup medal ceremony on the field, he gave Jenni Hermoso a kiss on the lips. As the partying went on in the locker room, Hermoso was asked about the kiss and teased about it. He laughed and smiled as he said, “Hey, but I didn’t like that!”
Catch a glimpse of Jenni Hermoso’s radiant smile after being kissed in this exclusive video clip:
Jenni Hermoso of Spain after being kissed on the lips by Spanish FA president Luis Rubiales at the trophy presentation. ‼😳
“Eh, yeah, I did not enjoy that.” pic.twitter.com/yDcXAenhyA
— Esthetics (@EstheticsNS) August 20, 2023
She and her teammates found out that the kiss had been caught on tape by watching live TV. When the video was shown to them, they screamed out in shock. It caused fans to be both confused and angry. There is nothing to suggest that Hermoso and Rubiales are dating or that the kiss was anything but unwelcome. Many people thought it smelled like the arrogance that still rules in Spain.
El Pas writer Nadia Tronchoni wrote that it was an “attack on [Hermoso] and on all the women” who cheered when Spain scored in the final on Sunday. “What a pity that such a beautiful day ends up tarnished by this seedy machirulismo. What little sensitivity.” But Rubiales wasn’t done yet. He then showed up with his arm around Hermoso in the changing room. He told everyone in the room that he would take Hermoso on a trip to Ibiza, which is a popular island holiday spot.
When asked about the kiss and the backlash it caused on Spanish radio, he said, “There are idiots everywhere. When two people have a minor show of affection, we can’t heed idiocy.”
Over 100,000 people have read the full statement. Click here to join them:
In many ways, his bold response was like how he handled a bigger scandal. The main players on the women’s national team talked to head coach Jorge Vilda and the league about a number of problems last summer. They said the staff, which was once said to be “dictatorial,” was still not professional.
They said that the environment had hurt both the team’s success and their “emotional and personal state.” They didn’t feel like anyone was behind them, so in September, 15 of them sent emails to the league saying they wouldn’t play for the national team “until the situation is reversed.”
The federation, which was run by Rubiales, responded with a strong statement that made those emails public, basically smeared the players, and turned the last 11 months into a drama-filled, tense mess. On Sunday, when the team won despite the tension and without a few skilled players who had quit in protest, Rubiales seemed to poke fun at those players, or at least at everyone who had criticized him for how he handled their concerns.
“We have worked very hard to be here — and that, despite the fact that some did not let us,” he said. “It is a very small percentage, but a percentage that was resentful.” He concluded by telling those people “not to speak without knowledge,” but didn’t clarify to whom he was referring.
Each and every one of his tricks on Sunday took away attention from the guys who won. He pushed his way into the middle of the party hugged the players and took pictures with Vilda. He also seemed to be kissing Olga Carmona on the cheek in separate pictures. (Vilda was also seen kissing him.)
As the video of Hermoso kissing got around, so did the criticism. Some Spanish journalists pointed out that the federation’s policy on sexual violence says that “forced kisses” are “unacceptable conduct with immediate consequences.”
When asked for a statement on the situation, FIFA did not give one right away. As a response, the union tried to stop the raging debate. It put out a message that it said came from Hermoso and was written in Spanish. It said:
“This was a totally spontaneous and mutual gesture due to the immense joy that winning the World Cup gave us. The president and I have a great relationship, his behavior with everyone has been excellent, and it was a natural gesture of affection and gratitude. We have won a World Cup and we are not going to lose sight of what is important.”
Hermoso didn’t share the message on social media, though. Her only post since the match is a video from the airport where she tries to go through airport security while wearing her gold medal. The kiss didn’t seem to have taken away her happiness, but that didn’t mean it was safe.
“This Sunday,” Tronchoni wrote in El Pas, “we celebrated something more than a title. Especially us. The women, the girls, the girls of this country, we celebrated that our stubbornness had finally defeated machismo.”
“But there is still a long way to go,” she later concluded. “Because women kiss who we want and when we want. Because a kiss on the mouth, by surprise, is an aggression. Even worse if the kiss comes from a superior. We are in 2023. And these gestures are unjustifiable.”
More than 24 hours later, with “Rubiales Out” trending on Twitter and a growing number of fans, media members, and foreign soccer officials calling for his resignation, he apologized in a video that was put online but not on the federation’s social channels.
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“I made a mistake, for sure,” Rubiales said in the video. “I have to accept it. In a moment of such emotion, without any bad intention or bad faith, what happened, happened, in a very spontaneous way, with no bad faith from either side.”
“We saw it as something natural and normal … but on the outside, it has caused commotion, because people have felt hurt by it, so I have to apologize; there’s no alternative. I have to learn from this and understand that a president of an institution as important as the federation — above all in ceremonies and that kind of thing — should be more careful.”
“There are also some declarations I made where, within this context, I said [the outcry] seemed like idiocy — because on the inside, nobody considered it important. But on the outside they had. So, I want to apologize to those people.”
“I’m also saddened because this is the biggest success in our history in women’s football, the second World Cup that we’ve won, and this has affected the celebration.”