A former captain of Spain’s women’s national football team has described the weeks-long standoff over the fate of Luis Rubiales as a “war” that has pitted more than 100 of the country’s top female players against certain members of the Spanish football establishment.
In an interview published on Monday, Verónica Boquete even went so far as to claim that Jenni Hermoso’s phone had been hacked, which may have been an attempt to discredit Hermoso in the wake of the unsolicited kiss by Rubiales.
Boquete did not offer further details of the alleged phone hacking, who might have done it, nor did she explain where the information had come from.
“We knew there were no rules. Jenni’s phone was hacked,” she told the German news magazine Der Spiegel. “The perpetrators had access to personal videos and photos. Now only the things that will help them attack the victim will be leaked.”
The hack came up after Boquete was asked about a video seemingly leaked earlier this month in which Spanish players were seen on the team bus soon after their World Cup win. In the footage, the mood appeared to be jovial and some appeared to be laughing about the kiss.
Boquete pointed to the wider context to claim that the video was being used strategically. “There were also other moments on the bus in which the players said: ‘Enough, this is a serious matter that cannot be tolerated,’” she said.
She said she had been in contact with Hermoso and other players who were in contact with her. “These are difficult days for her and her family,” she said. “But I think the support and team spirit from the other players gives her strength.”
The interview was published hours after Rubiales announced his resignation. The decision followed three weeks of mounting outrage after he grabbed Hermoso by the head, pulled her towards him and planted a kiss on her lips.
On Monday, Spain’s top criminal court said it had opened an investigation into Rubiales and begun soliciting media outlets for footage of the kiss and the players’ celebrations. The announcement came after a prosecutor with the court said on Friday that a complaint had been filed amid concerns that there were grounds to charge the formal football chief with sexual assault as well as coercion.
In a statement published late last month, Hermoso said the incident had left her feeling “vulnerable and a victim of aggression”. She characterised the kiss as an “impulsive act, sexist, out of place and without any type of consent from my part”.
In announcing his resignation on Sunday, Rubiales said he would continue to defend himself. “I have faith in the truth and I will do everything in my power so that it prevails,” he said in a statement.
Boquete, who won 62 caps for Spain but was not selected for the national team after a 2015 player revolt against the federation, described to Der Spiegel how dozens of players banded together after Rubiales appeared to be trying to shift the blame on to Hermoso during a speech in which he railed against “false feminism” and vowed to stay on in his role.
It felt as if “we were going to war,” she said. “Rubiales has crossed all boundaries, so let’s not hold back either.”
Boquete started a WhatsApp group, named Off to War, grouping together the 81 players who signed a statement saying they would not play for the national team until changes in leadership were made. She said the group had since grown to include more than 100 players.
As the saga dragged into its third week, Boquete said the sentiment was now that the female footballers had “won a battle but are losing the war”.
She pointed to the change in coaches for the women’s team as an example. She welcomed the sacking of the former coach Jorge Vilda, claiming he was a “control freak” who allegedly forced them to leave the doors to their rooms unlocked at night so that he could wish them goodnight and allegedly forced captains to sit at different tables while eating over concerns that they would conspire against him.
By replacing him with his assistant coach Montsé Tomé, however, she felt that the federation had not made enough of a clean break from its past to convince the players to end their strike. “We demand deeper change,” she said. “She [Tomé] allowed a lot of things to happen and only distanced herself from Rubiales later on.”
Rubiales, Vilda and Tomé did not reply to a request for comment.
