The Union of European Clubs (UEC), which represents 121 teams from around the continent, has issued a statement urging Luis Rubiales to stand down with immediate effect as president of the Spanish football federation (RFEF).
Pressure has been growing around Europe all week for the disgraced Rubiales to resign amid continued condemnation of the unsolicited kiss he gave the national team player Jenni Hermoso after the Women’s World Cup final. Rubiales was provisionally suspended by Fifa, football’s global governing body, on Saturday pending the outcome of disciplinary proceedings but he has doubled down on his intention to remain in situ despite becoming increasingly isolated domestically.
The UEC statement read: “The entire football ecosystem has responsibility to follow the strict codes of professional conduct and ensure that any form of harassment will be subject to zero-tolerance policy. This particularly applies to those in leadership positions.
“The UEC therefore welcomes the suspension of Luis Rubiales from domestic and international football by Fifa as an adequate initial response and calls for his resignation. We wholeheartedly support the Selección Española Femenina de Fútbol in their long-standing efforts to create a safe, inclusive, and equitable environment and encourage them to take this opportunity to dismantle misogyny and sexism both in the governance structures and on the field.”
Founded this year, the UEC is a body that seeks to give representation to small and medium-sized clubs around Europe. Its numbers are understood to be growing rapidly. This intervention is the first from a collective European football organisation regarding Rubiales’s case, which has seen regional presidents from his own federation withdraw their support and ask for him to resign.
Uefa, the game’s continental governing body, has been significantly quieter. On Monday it rejected a bizarre request from the RFEF to be suspended from international competition on account of supposed government interference regarding Rubiales, whose removal has been sought by ministers.
But Uefa has stopped short of publicly offering a view on his conduct, or imposing a sanction, even though Rubiales has been one of its vice-presidents since May 2019. Its president, Aleksander Ceferin, is understood to have been in regular contact with Fifa over the past week but both parties have agreed to leave the case under the disciplinary jurisdiction of the global body. That is because the Women’s World Cup is run by Fifa.
Uefa’s silence, however, remains notable and the scandal threatens to leave a cloud hovering over the draws this week for the men’s Champions League, Europa League and Conference League, which will take place in Monaco on Friday. Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid are among the leading Spanish sides who will be represented at the event but Rubiales’s status may overshadow any intrigue regarding the group stage fixtures this year.
On Tuesday Alexia Putellas, one of the most internationally known players in Spain’s victorious squad, explained with implicit reference to the RFEF that institutions need to start working in the wider interests of those involved in the women’s game.
“We all want the same thing, for there be respect for our profession the same as there has been for so many years in the men’s,” she said. “We fight for that. For my generation it’s been up to us to be more than just players to achieve that, but the legacy we want to leave is that they no longer have to worry about these things. It is not our job to be in meetings to get better infrastructures, better facilities.
“We need executives and institutions to fight for that so that we can be focused on what we like and what we believe people deserve [playing football].”
