at a church in Motril, Granada, Spain. Photograph: Alba Feixas/EPA
More than a week after the world watched Luis Rubiales plant an unsolicited kiss on forward Jenni Hermoso, the seaside city of Motril woke up to find graffiti gracing its sports centre. “Prison for Rubiales,” read one message scrawled on the front entrance. “We’re with Jenni,” read another.
The graffiti soon became the backdrop for television crews as they descended on the city as news broke that the embattled football chief’s mother, Ángeles Béjar, had shut herself into a 19th century church and declared she was on hunger strike over the “unwarranted, inhumane and bloodthirsty hunt” of her son.
The unexpected turn of events seemingly turned Motril – a southern Spanish city of 59,000 where Rubiales’ dad was mayor for eight years – into the last bastion of public support for a man who was once among the most powerful in European football.
On Monday evening, a few dozen of Rubiales’ friends, family and supporters gathered outside the former convent where his mother is camped out, waving placards that decried what they saw as Rubiales’ persecution.
The focus was on the kiss – “We are talking about a little kiss, he didn’t kill anyone,” resident Amparo Macias told Reuters – rather than Rubiales grabbing his crotch as the women’s team won the World Cup.
The small gathering was eclipsed by the global momentum for what has seemingly become a turning point in Spain. On Monday hundreds packed into a central Madrid plaza, their chants of se acabó, or “it’s over”, aimed as much at Rubiales’ presidency as at female football’s long-running struggle to be treated on a par with the men’s national team.
Across the Atlantic the UN spokesperson weighed in – “How difficult is it not to kiss somebody on the lips?” Stéphane Dujarric told reporters – as the national football teams of Norway added their voices to the many who have expressed solidarity with Hermoso.
Rubiales, in contrast, appeared increasingly isolated. This week the regional leaders of the Spanish football federation demanded he resign, reportedly cancelling his pay and asking him to return his mobile phone, as the country’s high court investigated whether the kiss could be grounds for sexual assault charges.
Rubiales has sought to portray the kiss as consensual, claiming he asked Hermoso if he could give her a peck and that she replied: “OK.” Hermoso has described Rubiales’ words as “categorically false” and said the unconsented kiss left her feeling “vulnerable and a victim of aggression”.
Against this backdrop it was Rubiales mother who swept to his rescue, portraying herself as what La Vanguardia’s Isabel Garcia Pagan described as the image of “Mother courage” seeking to exhort sympathies and wrangle in the church as Rubiales wages an “incomprehensible battle against the 21st century.”
News media in Spain have embraced the plight of Béjar, offering ongoing updates. “I don’t mind dying for justice,” she told broadcaster Telecinco on Tuesday, as she said her first night in the church had gone well.
Many saw it as the family’s attempt to use media pressure to skirt around Fifa’s orders for Rubiales to refrain from contacting Hermoso and those around her. Others saw it as an example of how women end up perpetuating patriarchal attitudes.
On Friday, as Rubiales railed against “fake feminism”, he pointed proudly to his three daughters who sat in the audience, addressing them directly as he battled for his job.
Whether intentional or not, the involvement of his daughters and mother fits into a well-worn pattern, said political scientist Cristina Monge. “It’s exactly the script. With the daughters at the assembly and the mother in the church, what they end up doing is sparking division among women,” she said. “This would make a perfect Netflix series.”
As the many reporters camped out outside the church offer a running broadcast of the lock-in, the attention may be helping to put in play what Kate Manne, an associate professor at Cornell University describes as “himpathy” – an operation that sees powerful and privileged men garner sympathy and support over their female victims.
While some have seized on this as a sign of a polarised Spain divided over women’s rights, Monge pointed to the condemnations that have poured in from across the political spectrum, with even the far-right Vox leader describing Rubiales’ act as “disgraceful”.
The response hints at the deep impact feminism has had across Spain, with movements such as that directed against the so-called Wolf Pack helping to reshape how the country view women’s rights and consent.
“What we’ve seen at play in recent days is twofold; one is the huge reaction of Spanish society to the changes wrought by feminism,” she said. “And the other is how deeply rooted machismo is in some power structures, such as the Spanish football federation … It’s an example of how machismo is absolutely permeating and contaminating the power structures of Spanish society at a level that we no longer thought possible.”
The sentiment was echoed by Verónica Boquete, the Spanish superstar footballer and veteran of the female football team’s long quest for equality.
“What Rubiales did is part of the society that we all want to change. And year by year it is changing,” she told Newtral.es. “It’s a reflection of a part of society that we want to make smaller and smaller.”
