The European Parliament has added the “controversial” kiss at the FIFA Women’s Football World Cup Final on August 20 to its list of items to be debated at Strasbourg’s next plenary session.
On September 14, the Parliament will debate the kiss Spanish football chief Luis Rubiales gave Spain player Jenni Hermoso after her team won the competition.
The full-on smacker happened during the medal ceremony, as the new champions were honoured by the Spanish football delegation. Rubiales warmly welcomed many of them with a hearty embrace and a peck on the cheek, playfully lifting a few off the ground. The most intense moment he shared with Hermoso, as he gave her a kiss on the lips.
Despite Hermoso attempting to laugh of the incident shortly afterwards, she later said on social media: “I felt vulnerable and a victim of an impulse-driven, sexist, out-of-place act without any consent on my part.
“Simply put, I was not respected,” she asserted.
On reflection, Rubiales said he had made a mistake but insisted the kiss was consensual. That cut no ice with the political Left or feminists who jumped on the case – so much so that it has now reached top European levels.
In relation to the incident, European Parliament members will discuss “violence and discrimination in sport” at the next plenary in Strasbourg.
The debate was put forward by the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), the Republican Left of Catalonia, a separatist party that is part of the Greens–European Free Alliance.
The same party had just days earlier asked for the release of four activists who wanted to pour 400 litres of oil on the track during the Vuelta a España, an annual multi-stage bicycle race primarily held in Spain.
