The kiss that shook Spanish soccer
Lesson summary
Hi there everyone, I’m Jeff and this is Plain English, where we help you upgrade your English with current events and trending topics. This is lesson 614. That means JR, the producer, has uploaded the full lesson to PlainEnglish.com/614.
Coming up today: The story about the Spanish women’s soccer team should have been about how they beat the odds to claim their first-ever World Cup victory in Australia this year. Instead, it’s about an unwanted kiss. The story is ever-changing, but we’ll give you the latest on today’s episode.
In the second half of the audio lesson, we’ll talk about the phrasal verb “pile on.” And we have a quote of the week.
If you’re listening, and if you want to read the transcript, remember, you find the transcripts by the episode number. So this is 614, so go to PlainEnglish.com/614 and that’s where you’ll find the transcript.
Ready? Let’s get going.
The kiss that shook women’s soccer
The FIFA Women’s World Cup took place this year in Australia and New Zealand. The U.S. team was the favorite to win, but they were knocked out in the Round of 16. Going into the tournament, England and the Netherlands were also expected to compete for the trophy. Spain had been ranked sixth in the world but wasn’t considered a major contender. The Spanish women’s team had won just a single World Cup game in its history—and the women’s World Cup dates back to 1970.
But Spain advanced to the finals and beat England 1-0 to win its first World Cup. Unfortunately, their unexpected victory was overshadowed by what came after the game.
After the game came the medal ceremony. There was a raised platform on the field. And each member of the winning team came up to the platform to receive a medal. One of the people presenting medals and congratulating the players was Luis Rubiales.
Luis Rubiales was the president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, the country’s national soccer federation. It governs both the women’s and the men’s game. As players came up to get their medals, he hugged them and kissed them on the cheek—nothing unusual.
But then came Jenni Hermoso, the star forward of the team. When she got her medal, Rubiales put his hands on either side of her face—and kissed her on the lips.
To many viewers, this was shockingly inappropriate. Hermoso later said the kiss was unwanted. She said that “no person, in any work, sports, or social setting, should be a victim of these types of nonconsensual behaviors.”
The whole team later signed their names to a letter supporting Hermoso. At first, Rubiales refused to apologize for the kiss, saying he didn’t pay attention to “stupid people.” He later issued a tepid apology, saying the kiss was normal and natural and a spontaneous act of celebration.
The players on the women’s team didn’t see it that way. Dozens of them sent a letter to Spain’s soccer federation, saying they would refuse to play for Spain’s national team again until Rubiales had been dismissed. They also demanded changes in how soccer is governed in Spain. Soccer fans largely took the side of the players.
Much of Spanish society, and the international soccer world, piled on . The Spanish soccer federation initially sided with Rubiales, but later called on him to resign. FIFA, the international governing body of soccer, suspended Rubiales. Government ministers sided with Hermoso. A Spanish court opened an investigation into whether the kiss was sexual assault; Rubiales was given a restraining order, prohibiting him from being within 200 meters of Hermoso.
But for weeks, Rubiales hung onto his job, refusing to resign. He called the accusations against him “false feminism.”
It was clear, though, that he couldn’t stay for long. The country’s best female soccer players refused to play under him.
In women’s soccer, as in the men’s game, players have contracts to play for professional teams—and those teams can be anywhere. Hermoso, for example, plays for a Mexican team, but she’s played for other teams around Europe.
Apart from their professional contracts, they also play in international competitions. And in those international competitions, they play for their home countries’ national teams. Hermoso is 33 and was born in Madrid. So in international competitions, she plays for the Spanish national team.
The World Cup-winning roster was 23 Spanish players; of them, 21 signed letters in which they refuse to play for Spain’s national team until and unless changes were made. An additional eighteen not on that roster have joined them. So Spain could not field a women’s soccer team just a month after winning the biggest tournament in the world.
The primary job of the Spanish soccer federation is to field a national team for international competitions—but the best players all refused to play in these competitions.
Rubiales eventually resigned. His replacement then fired the team’s controversial coach. But the players say that just making one or two replacements is not enough.
For example, the players say that the previous coach required them to keep their hotel doors unlocked so he could make sure they were in bed on time; he monitored who they saw and where they went. The players—who are professional athletes—are insisting on more changes and protections before they go back to play for Spain’s national team.
The Spanish soccer federation, however, was playing hardball. It said that any players who refused to play for the national team would be fined and suspended for two years. Players arrived grudgingly at Valencia, where they began training for upcoming games.
However, the drama appears to have cooled off. The players, the Spanish soccer federation, and the government’s sports council came to an agreement on ways to reform soccer in Spain. They will work together to implement more changes in the future. All but two players agreed to continue playing for the national team, and no player was punished for refusing to play.
This was a story that I had my eye on weeks ago. And I kept waiting and waiting for Luis Rubiales to resign. I wanted to wait until it had a little bit of a conclusion before creating the episode. But weeks went by, then a month, and he still hadn’t resigned.
Finally, he’s out, but there are probably some new developments to the story. The good news is, we have a way to keep you up to date on recent lesson topics, and that is our lesson e-mails.
I love making these—they’re so much better than they used to be. I’m using the e-mails as a way to update you on previous stories, so you can continue to feel connected to the English you’re learning.
If you’re not getting those, make sure to go to PlainEnglish.com/mail
If you do that, you’ll start getting e-mails from JR on Mondays and Thursdays, packed with updates, links, quizzes, and more. PlainEnglish.com/mail
Quote of the Week
It’s Monday, so I have an English quote for you to ponder and consider. Today’s is from George MacDonald, a Scottish writer. He said, “To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.” This is a good one to keep in mind for the Instagram age we live in. “To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved,” says George MacDonald.
Next up—the phrasal verb “pile on.”
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