When Spanish football boss Luis Rubiales got in trouble for “planting a smacker” on the lips of his country’s star striker Jenni Hermoso after the Women’s World Cup final, says Allison Pearson in The Daily Telegraph, he should have apologised immediately for humiliating Hermoso, “and for making a spectacle of himself in front of a global audience of millions”. Instead, he gave a defiant press conference, boldly setting out to paint himself as the victim. “I’m ready to be vilified to defend my ideals,” he said, claiming to be the subject of a “manhunt” by “false feminists”. And what ideals would they be, Mr Rubiales? The right to sling a “world-slaying” athlete over your shoulder like “some wench”?
Normally I would roll my eyes at women shouting “sexual violence” after “some daft bloke got a bit leery”. The witch hunt of the #MeToo movement put serial predators like Harvey Weinstein in the same bracket as “Roger from Sales who made an ‘inappropriate remark’ to Susie at the Christmas party”. But I looked back at the Rubiales footage and it really was “awful”. He treated the whole team with a complete lack of respect, like the “worst-ever drunk uncle at a wedding”, while also praising the “balls” of the team’s male manager. No wonder Spain’s entire World Cup-winning squad have said they won’t represent their country again while this “arrogant creep” is in charge. Personally, I’d like to see him put in goal and Spain’s world-beating females take shots at him. That might make him “revise his view on who’s got balls”.