Spain: world champion confused with influencer at medal ceremony

women soccer
Embarrassing glitch at the award ceremony: Spanish world champion is confused with an influencer

Spain’s world champions have been awarded a royal medal – but instead of a player, an influencer suddenly appeared in the announcement.

Bad faux pas in Spain: The soccer world champions were awarded the Royal Order of Merit after their victory in the World Cup final against England. The award was formally announced in the official gazette. But if you looked closely, you noticed a not insignificant error.

As the Spanish sports newspaper “Marca” reports, at the top of the list of world champions was a name that even good connoisseurs of the shouldn’t say anything about women’s football: Ivana Icardi Rivero. There is simply no player with that name in the Spanish team. It quickly became clear that Ivana Andrés was actually meant. This is not just any player, but the captain of the world champion team.

Spain’s World Cup team: instead of the captain, an influencer appears

Ivana Icardi Rivero, on the other hand, is not active as a footballer, although she has something to do with the sport in a broader sense: she is the sister of Mauro Icardi, who is under contract with Galatasaray Istanbul in Turkey. However, Icardi Rivero is better known as an influencer with almost a million followers on Instagram and a participant in a reality show on television. In any case, she could never have competed for “La Roja”, because the influencer comes from Argentina.

“I’m just thinking about how many people it can happen to be recognized for sporting merit by the Spanish government without having won a World Cup, without being Spanish and without ever having touched a football in their life,” wrote her on Instagram. She doesn’t seem to have much understanding for the breakdown: “How could it go wrong?” Ivana Andrés, the real world champion, has not yet commented on the mix-up.

Another name was misspelled

There is even another error in the announcement: midfielder Aitana Bonmati Conca’s name was misspelled. There was an extra s at the end of her name that doesn’t belong there.

The national sports council explained that human error led to the incorrect names. We want to correct this as soon as possible. Letters have been sent to those affected.

Sources: “marca” / Ivana Icardi Rivero on Instagram