On August 20, at noon in Spain, Luis Rubiales, elated and unleashed, felt his genitals a few meters from the Queen and the Infanta from the box of the Sydney stadium while pointing to the coach Jorge Vilda. The women in red had just won the World Cup. Minutes later, the president of the Federation gave forward Jennifer Hermoso a non-consensual kiss on the mouth. A kiss that was going to turn Spanish football upside down.
A few hours later, Rubiales, on the Cope network, responded with insults and intemperate boxes to the voices that were beginning to spoil his attitude. A first out of tune reaction that would only make things worse.
The next morning, Monday, August 21, the Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta, demanded explanations and an apology from the president of the Federation. The ball was increasing and on the stopover of the trip from Australia Rubiales recorded a video in which he apologized with a small mouth and in which he came to say that the kiss issue had been a matter of two. That evening, at the title celebration in Madrid, the entire atmosphere was marked by the episode and Rubiales did not attend the festivities.
On Tuesday, August 22, the footballers were received at La Moncloa by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, who was hieratic when greeting the president of the RFEF. Hours later, Sánchez put Rubiales on the ropes. “Apologies are neither sufficient nor adequate. Mr. Rubiales must continue taking steps to clarify what we have seen,” stated the acting President of the Government. That same Tuesday night, the Federation announced an extraordinary assembly for Friday, August 25, in principle, to support its president.
But as the days went by and the pressure grew, the feeling that Rubiales was going to leave office grew. In fact, the RFEF leaked to the media on Thursday, August 24 at the last minute that the president was going to throw in the towel on the occasion of the assembly.
But in a twist of a bizarre script, Rubiales sadly passed into posterity on Friday, August 25, with a speech in which he attacked “false feminism,” in which he put on the captain's suit of the world's alpha males and in who denied five times that he was going to resign. At the same time he said that the kiss had been consented to by both parties. The Government, through the CSD, filed a complaint in the afternoon before the Court of Arbitration for Sports (TAD) to open a file against Rubiales "for two very serious offenses." At the same time, Spain's main soccer players, including all the world champions, announced that they would not play with the national team again until there were profound changes in the Federation.
The next day, Saturday the 26th, FIFA came forward with a statement in which it provisionally suspended Rubiales for a period of 90 days. The RFEF happened to be in charge on an interim basis of Pedro Rocha.
The scandal was already of global dimensions and on August 28 the Prosecutor's Office opened proceedings for the kiss, waiting for Jennifer Hermoso to decide to file a complaint. Meanwhile, the TAD delayed its resolution, which would not arrive until Friday, September 1. He opened a file but for serious, and not very serious, offenses, with which the CSD did not have the power to initiate a precautionary disqualification of Rubiales. The CSD sent a letter to the TAD the following day in which it demanded that this court be the one that directly provisionally disqualified the leader. The TAD has not yet decided on the matter.
Meanwhile, events continued to happen, and on Tuesday, September 5, the RFEF dispensed with the services of Jorge Vilda, who wildly applauded Rubiales in his sexist speech at the assembly. On Wednesday, September 6, Hermoso reported Rubiales to the Prosecutor's Office and on Friday, September 8, the complaint reached the National Court. Thus until this Sunday, September 10, when the leader threw in the towel.
