Opinion
Resignation after kissing scandal
Luis Rubiales leaves as captain of the “big-mouth-nothing-behind-it” team
Resigned head of the association: Luis Rubiales has failed with his crisis management
© Gabriel Bouys/La Nacion via ZUMA Press / Picture Alliance
Out of insight, Luis Rubiales, former president of the Spanish Football Association, certainly didn’t give up. And he doesn’t stand down as a martyr either. The trick of turning the perpetrator into a victim failed in his case.
In the end: an attempt to create pathos. “I will defend my honor. And my innocence. I believe in the future. I believe in the truth. Thank you everyone.” This is what the now ex-football association president wrote Luis Rubiales on the social network X (formerly Twitter). He placed the Spanish flag underneath. A case of national importance, that should probably be called.
Rubiales was right about the meaning. And it wasn’t just Spain that was interested in his kiss on the mouth of soccer world champion Jenni Hermoso. The action caused consternation around the world and was then exceeded by Rubiale’s reaction to the reactions: no apology, anywhere. Instead, the claim of “pico consentido”, the consensual kiss on the mouth. He maintained this long after the player had long since objected.
Unsavory and unpleasant
This affair was unsavory and unpleasant, also because Rubiales tried to defend himself with such sentences: “The desire that I might have had with that kiss was exactly the same that I might have had if I had given it to one of my daughters. ” The president fought with all means from the start. Perhaps he was encouraged by a few prominent voices, including those abroad at the beginning of the scandal. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge from FC Bayern, for example, said in all seriousness: “When you become world champion, you are emotional. And what he did there was – sorry, with all due respect – absolutely okay.”
Luis Rubiales was suddenly more famous than ever before in his five years in office. His mother went on a hunger strike in the parish church in her Andalusian homeland, which attracted media attention to draw attention to the injustice that was happening to her son. Meanwhile, Rubiales himself slipped into the role of the populist resister. For him, the usual “You’ll probably still be allowed to say that” turned into “You’ll probably still be allowed to kiss.” He courageously railed against excessive political correctness and “false feminism”. He is “a scourge in this country”.
Luis Rubiales’ behavior is reminiscent of Hubert Aiwanger
Rubiales’ addressees were no longer the opinion makers who, for the most part, rejected his kiss and refusal to step down in Spain. The official was now targeting the largely male part of society that disapproves of the fact that women in Spain are now much more aggressively striving for equality. And who is happy when someone you know and who is heard speaks plainly. Rubiales has therefore received a lot of defense on the Internet, in social networks. That may have inspired him to stay tough and not give up his office. Even though the elites and media were against him, the people stood by him. This is another way to close your mind to arguments and facts. As a German, you are now reminded of the Bavarian Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger, who gathers support and encouragement in the beer tents.
In the leaflet affair, the politician Hubert Aiwanger acted according to the principle of perpetrator-victim reversal. He was not anti-Semitic, he said, and that political opponents and the media were waging a smear campaign against him. Luis Rubiales also played the victim and spoke of “persecución”, of persecution. The good news is that – unlike Aiwanger – he didn’t make it.
No resignation due to insight
As a matter of insight, this resignation did not happen. This sentence alone shows this in his resignation statement: “My daughters, my family and the people who love me have suffered from the effects of unreasonable persecution and from many misrepresentations.” Rubiales extends the victim myth here to include family and friends. And in the next sentence he immediately thinks he is in harmony with the masses. It’s true, he writes, that “the truth is becoming more prevalent on the streets every day.”
After a three-week fight, Rubiales leaves the field not as a martyr, but as a loser. His withdrawal, which is said to have stunned the Spanish Football Association, may be due to confidential horse-trading. Rubiales was a top earner with an annual salary of more than 600,000 euros, so it would actually be better to be thrown out and resigned than to resign. Maybe the top official will receive certain payments for suddenly giving up. And perhaps that is why he himself pointed out that Spain would like to host the 2030 World Cup together with Portugal and Morocco – and that his affair could have hindered the application. The message for the world football association: I’m gone, the problem is now solved.
Whether he leaves well paid or not – his crisis management has definitely failed. “I will not resign,” the popular newspaper “Marca” quoted him on its front page today, and the sports daily printed the sentence five times in a row. Rubiales had so often ruled out his withdrawal in his defense speech. Underneath it, “Marca” wrote, almost with relish and not marked as a quote: “And in the end I’m resigning.”
In the end, Luis Rubiales is the captain of the “big mouth, nothing behind it” team.