On 20 August Luís Rubiales, the president of the Spanish Football Federation, embraced and kissed Captain Jenni Hermoso minutes after she led Spain’s football team to victory. It was an awkward and very inappropriate gesture. However, since that fateful incident, he has virtually become a non-person.
The politically ascendant Left in Spain, which is intent on dethroning what it sees as patriarchy in every conceivable situation, spies an imminent triumph. It has labeled Rubiales an oppressive misogynist whose very existence, at least in his present post, is an outrage against progressive and liberated Spain. Even the main centre-right Popular Party—whose insipid leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, hopes to be installed as prime minister soon—has fled before the drumbeats of the totalitarian Left. In fact, PP has offered its own denunciation of the beleaguered football boss.
Ironically, even though Rubiales is left-wing, he is being hung out to dry by Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s socialist prime minister. This will come as no surprise to anyone who knows how Sánchez operates. Throughout his career, he has shown every sign of being one of those well-born cynical adventurers who periodically disrupt political life in search of novelty or glory. Critics fear that he will stop at nothing to turn Spain into an outpost of Latin American left-wing populism. He has opted to ally with many unsavory groups, including fringe feminists, who wield power that far exceeds their numbers. He aims to impose a personality-focused brand of leftist politics that can appeal to mobilised minorities, even if they wish to ignite a war between the sexes. The choice between siding with feminists or Rubiales was an easy one for Sánchez.
Rubiales’ mother—who tweeted her joy at the news that Sanchez had polled well in last month’s election—went on hunger strike to protest her son’s media execution. She will likely find sympathy in her small hometown of Motril. Beyond Spain’s major metropolitan hubs, regions like Andalucia remain family-orientated and non-woke. Millions of Spaniards find the demands of zealous middle-class activists jarring and hard to reconcile with the pace of their own lives.
As a stand-off ensued between a defiant Rubiales and his many detractors, a small number of journalists forsook the robotic witch hunt and began to probe beneath the surface. Claims, backed up with evidence, emerged that Rubiales’ enemies, the players association, and others, wanted to ally with critics in the political world to topple him.
Casting Jenni Hermoso as a noble athlete whose hour of fame was tarnished by a chauvinist superior was a powerful narrative in the hands of a range of interests who hoped to profit from his demise. These are not just the interests of professional rivals but of radical feminists who had already gone some considerable way to turning feminism into the new official religion of the Spanish state.
The tide suddenly began to turn on 29 August when videos emerged showing the Spanish women players laughingly commenting on the kiss just hours after it happened. On the team bus, Hermoso asked Rubiales for a kiss “as a joke” and laughed when he declined. Later, she and her teammates delivered solemn statements declaring that the kiss was tantamount to a serious sexual assault.
This tawdry and ugly affair may reach the courts. Hermoso made a formal complaint to the authorities on September 5th, 16 days after the event that she and her lawyers describe as an assault. He hung on to his position as president of the Spanish Football Federation until September 8th. Rubiales insists that the accusations made against him are baseless and wholly politically-motivated.
To make matters worse, Jorge Vilda, the coach who steered the Spanish women’s team to victory was unceremoniously sacked without explanation on September 9th. It appears that his sole offense was that he declined to join the witch-hunt against Rubiales. It is clear that Spanish Football has been swept up in political power games.
While Rubiales will likely find stalwart support in Spain’s ‘silent majority,’ the judge’s outlook is crucial. Pessimists fear that overwhelming pressure will be placed on the sitting judge by the media and those currently in power to condemn the defendant irrespective of the deep holes in the prosecution’s case.
It is likely that this uproar will have political repercussions, particularly if elections are held soon in order to break the parliamentary impasse that has existed since July’s inconclusive general election. The minister of labour and leader of the far-left Sumar party, an imperiously posh lady named Yolanda Diaz, has been in the vanguard of the ‘Get Rubiales’ movement. She is using the scandal to insist on parity between men and women’s football, a demand that has been consistently rejected as impractical by Spanish football’s governing body—until now. But even this dominatrix must see that her task of forcing the Spanish nation to bend before a North American-imported model for a controlled society—one that is neurotic and deeply miserable—is a mission impossible.
However, from a broader vantage point, this episode serves to highlight the Left’s hypocrisy. While feigning outrage over a foolish moment of exuberance, the socialist government has been quietly engaged in a revolutionary political objective: coaxing a separatist traitor to provide political aid to the socialist government. On September 5th, Yolanda Díaz travelled to Belgium, at Sánchez’s behest, to see if Madrid could induce Carles Puigdemont, the leader of the Junts per Catalunya party, to keep the Left in power. His party’s six seats are crucial in that regard. Puigdemont is a fugitive from Spanish justice and has been in exile since a failed secessionist attempt in 2017. To the horror of many, including dozens of former office holders removed from influence in the socialist party, Diaz dangled amnesty for Puigdemont and a future referendum on Catalan independence.
The left-wing European media were tight-lipped. Few if any drew a parallel between the government hounding a football boss through the courts on flimsy charges and Sánchez and his confederates considering amnesty for coup plotters. The message is clear: as the government extends its reach deeper into society, it will purge or pardon anyone, as long as it serves its interest. They will choose a treasonous political actor over an uncouth football executive.
If left-wing activists with their allies in the media and state bureaucracy turn an imprudent kiss into an unpardonable social crime, then the consequences could be grim across society. This would be a giant leap towards the imposition of a fearful social climate in which public behaviour is rigorously policed and a spontaneous public gesture can quickly result in personal destruction.
Díaz will no doubt be aware of Lenin’s advice to fellow militants: “You must probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw.” I suspect the cultural Left will find that Spain’s majority has steely resolve to continue enjoying its freedoms. Most will refuse to acquiesce in the sinister farce that Rubiales was engaged in a terrible assault. His behaviour was boorish but his passionate embrace was a spontaneous one in the heat of an epic victory, one that was swiftly over.
What should have been a sporting triumph, has instead become a bitter controversy whose most serious repercussions have so far occurred beyond the sporting realm. Women footballers have been placed under insuperable pressure in order to be cannon fodder in a cultural offensive mounted by unscrupulous forces. Sánchez and his ilk have never shown any interest in individual sporting endeavors and, true to form, have sought to absorb women’s football into their own armoury of political control.
Showdown Over A Kiss
On 20 August Luís Rubiales, the president of the Spanish Football Federation, embraced and kissed Captain Jenni Hermoso minutes after she led Spain’s football team to victory. It was an awkward and very inappropriate gesture. However, since that fateful incident, he has virtually become a non-person.
The politically ascendant Left in Spain, which is intent on dethroning what it sees as patriarchy in every conceivable situation, spies an imminent triumph. It has labeled Rubiales an oppressive misogynist whose very existence, at least in his present post, is an outrage against progressive and liberated Spain. Even the main centre-right Popular Party—whose insipid leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, hopes to be installed as prime minister soon—has fled before the drumbeats of the totalitarian Left. In fact, PP has offered its own denunciation of the beleaguered football boss.
Ironically, even though Rubiales is left-wing, he is being hung out to dry by Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s socialist prime minister. This will come as no surprise to anyone who knows how Sánchez operates. Throughout his career, he has shown every sign of being one of those well-born cynical adventurers who periodically disrupt political life in search of novelty or glory. Critics fear that he will stop at nothing to turn Spain into an outpost of Latin American left-wing populism. He has opted to ally with many unsavory groups, including fringe feminists, who wield power that far exceeds their numbers. He aims to impose a personality-focused brand of leftist politics that can appeal to mobilised minorities, even if they wish to ignite a war between the sexes. The choice between siding with feminists or Rubiales was an easy one for Sánchez.
Rubiales’ mother—who tweeted her joy at the news that Sanchez had polled well in last month’s election—went on hunger strike to protest her son’s media execution. She will likely find sympathy in her small hometown of Motril. Beyond Spain’s major metropolitan hubs, regions like Andalucia remain family-orientated and non-woke. Millions of Spaniards find the demands of zealous middle-class activists jarring and hard to reconcile with the pace of their own lives.
As a stand-off ensued between a defiant Rubiales and his many detractors, a small number of journalists forsook the robotic witch hunt and began to probe beneath the surface. Claims, backed up with evidence, emerged that Rubiales’ enemies, the players association, and others, wanted to ally with critics in the political world to topple him.
Casting Jenni Hermoso as a noble athlete whose hour of fame was tarnished by a chauvinist superior was a powerful narrative in the hands of a range of interests who hoped to profit from his demise. These are not just the interests of professional rivals but of radical feminists who had already gone some considerable way to turning feminism into the new official religion of the Spanish state.
The tide suddenly began to turn on 29 August when videos emerged showing the Spanish women players laughingly commenting on the kiss just hours after it happened. On the team bus, Hermoso asked Rubiales for a kiss “as a joke” and laughed when he declined. Later, she and her teammates delivered solemn statements declaring that the kiss was tantamount to a serious sexual assault.
This tawdry and ugly affair may reach the courts. Hermoso made a formal complaint to the authorities on September 5th, 16 days after the event that she and her lawyers describe as an assault. He hung on to his position as president of the Spanish Football Federation until September 8th. Rubiales insists that the accusations made against him are baseless and wholly politically-motivated.
To make matters worse, Jorge Vilda, the coach who steered the Spanish women’s team to victory was unceremoniously sacked without explanation on September 9th. It appears that his sole offense was that he declined to join the witch-hunt against Rubiales. It is clear that Spanish Football has been swept up in political power games.
While Rubiales will likely find stalwart support in Spain’s ‘silent majority,’ the judge’s outlook is crucial. Pessimists fear that overwhelming pressure will be placed on the sitting judge by the media and those currently in power to condemn the defendant irrespective of the deep holes in the prosecution’s case.
It is likely that this uproar will have political repercussions, particularly if elections are held soon in order to break the parliamentary impasse that has existed since July’s inconclusive general election. The minister of labour and leader of the far-left Sumar party, an imperiously posh lady named Yolanda Diaz, has been in the vanguard of the ‘Get Rubiales’ movement. She is using the scandal to insist on parity between men and women’s football, a demand that has been consistently rejected as impractical by Spanish football’s governing body—until now. But even this dominatrix must see that her task of forcing the Spanish nation to bend before a North American-imported model for a controlled society—one that is neurotic and deeply miserable—is a mission impossible.
However, from a broader vantage point, this episode serves to highlight the Left’s hypocrisy. While feigning outrage over a foolish moment of exuberance, the socialist government has been quietly engaged in a revolutionary political objective: coaxing a separatist traitor to provide political aid to the socialist government. On September 5th, Yolanda Díaz travelled to Belgium, at Sánchez’s behest, to see if Madrid could induce Carles Puigdemont, the leader of the Junts per Catalunya party, to keep the Left in power. His party’s six seats are crucial in that regard. Puigdemont is a fugitive from Spanish justice and has been in exile since a failed secessionist attempt in 2017. To the horror of many, including dozens of former office holders removed from influence in the socialist party, Diaz dangled amnesty for Puigdemont and a future referendum on Catalan independence.
The left-wing European media were tight-lipped. Few if any drew a parallel between the government hounding a football boss through the courts on flimsy charges and Sánchez and his confederates considering amnesty for coup plotters. The message is clear: as the government extends its reach deeper into society, it will purge or pardon anyone, as long as it serves its interest. They will choose a treasonous political actor over an uncouth football executive.
If left-wing activists with their allies in the media and state bureaucracy turn an imprudent kiss into an unpardonable social crime, then the consequences could be grim across society. This would be a giant leap towards the imposition of a fearful social climate in which public behaviour is rigorously policed and a spontaneous public gesture can quickly result in personal destruction.
Díaz will no doubt be aware of Lenin’s advice to fellow militants: “You must probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw.” I suspect the cultural Left will find that Spain’s majority has steely resolve to continue enjoying its freedoms. Most will refuse to acquiesce in the sinister farce that Rubiales was engaged in a terrible assault. His behaviour was boorish but his passionate embrace was a spontaneous one in the heat of an epic victory, one that was swiftly over.
What should have been a sporting triumph, has instead become a bitter controversy whose most serious repercussions have so far occurred beyond the sporting realm. Women footballers have been placed under insuperable pressure in order to be cannon fodder in a cultural offensive mounted by unscrupulous forces. Sánchez and his ilk have never shown any interest in individual sporting endeavors and, true to form, have sought to absorb women’s football into their own armoury of political control.
READ NEXT
The Enterprise State
Play the Ball, not the Man: Cancel Culture’s Attempt To Capture Hungarian Academia
Starmer’s War on Farmers: a New Low for Client Politics