In August 2023, Jennifer Hermoso made football history by winning the World Cup with the Spanish national team. But the joy of this coronation was tarnished by the scandal of the forced kiss of Luis Rubiales, now ex-president of the Spanish Football Federation. Number 10, who filed the complaint, testified on Tuesday before the judge in charge of the investigation. Portrait of the woman who has become a symbol of #MeToo in Spanish football.
Queen of Spanish football, Jennifer Hermoso has always known how to make herself heard. On the pitch, her dazzling dribbles and unstoppable shots propelled her to legendary status. Off the field, she has now become an international symbol of the fight for equality between women and men.
On August 20, 2023, the story of Jennifer Hermoso, aka Jenni, changed. After Spain won the World Cup, the president of the Spanish Football Federation, Luis Rubiales, forcibly kissed her on the mouth. The attack caused an outcry in Spain and around the world, forcing him to resign.
The Spanish player testified on Tuesday, January 2, before the judge in charge of the investigation, declaring that the kiss had “at no time been consented” and that she had been subjected to intense pressure, according to a judicial source. She declared that she had been the victim of “harassment” from Luis Rubiales, and those around him, having “altered her life” and “produced a situation of unrest and sadness”.
The attack on Jenni Hermoso highlighted the sexism that still plagues the world of football. She has become, despite herself, a source of inspiration for women around the world, who see in her a symbol of strength and courage. Before this scandal, she was already an emblematic figure in the industry: she marked an era, not only for having played for some of the best teams in Spain, but also for having worn the colors of the national team, becoming the top scorer of the history of the Spanish selection.
No female role model
Jennifer Hermoso Fuentes was born on May 9, 1990 in Madrid, land of football. She grew up in the working-class neighborhood of Carabanchel between a civil servant father and a housewife mother. But above all with a grandfather who was a goalkeeper for Atlético de Madrid who instilled in him a love of football from a very young age.
As a teenager, Jenni Hermoso admired the Argentinian Fernando Redondo and the French Zinedine Zidane. “At the time, it was impossible to find a women’s football match on television,” she told the newspaper El Pais in May 2020. “I grew up without a mirror in which I could look at myself. didn’t have a point of reference and I followed the male player who was in fashion.”
Her meeting with Atlético’s top scorer, Ana Fernandez Navarrete, aka “Nervy” was a revelation. “She was my big idol, I never had a female role model. She is left-handed, like me, she played in the same position as me and I liked the way she was. She had a lot of charisma,” continues Jenni Hermoso in El Pais.
With the advice and support of her grandfather, Jenni Hermoso passed the tests to join Atlético de Madrid and began her career at the age of 12 with the club. At age 14, she made her professional debut, scoring a goal in a 6–0 victory against Vicalvaro. She quickly established herself thanks to her vision of the game, her ability to create imbalances in opposing lines and her sense of goal. She stayed there for six seasons.
Meteorological rise
In 2010, when she was 20 years old, Rayo Vallecano de Madrid, one of the best teams in the championship, called on her to strengthen their attack for their participation in the Women’s Champions League. She then left her training club and did not take long to confirm her qualities: she notably scored the victorious goal which secured the Superliga title for Rayo Vallecano. But the financial crisis hitting the club forced it to part ways with several of its players, including Jennifer Hermoso.
After a detour through Sweden and the Tyreso club, she signed for FC Barcelona, where she would experience a meteoric rise. In one season, she played 14 matches and scored nine goals, including two decisive ones to win La Liga against Atlético de Madrid and the Queen’s Cup against Athletic Club.
After a year out due to injury, Jennifer Hermoso came back strongly in 2016 and became the top scorer in the Champions League, with 24 goals. She consolidated her title in 2017, with 35 league goals, and played a decisive role in FC Barcelona’s victory in La Liga and the Copa del Rey.
In the summer of 2017, she signed for Paris Saint-Germain, where she scored important goals, but without managing to achieve the consistency that was hers at FC Barcelona. However, she won the Coupe de France and finished vice-champion of France.
In 2018, Jennifer Hermoso returned to Atlético de Madrid, her training club. She quickly established herself as the top scorer in the Spanish championship. The following year, she returned to FC Barcelona, where she continued her progress. She becomes the top scorer in the club’s history with 123 goals.
The Madrilenian is named second for the Women’s Ballon d’Or in 2021, behind her teammate Alexia Putellas. After winning numerous trophies in Europe and finishing as Spain’s top scorer five times, Jennifer Hermoso joins Mexican club Pachuca in June 2022. Her arrival is hailed as the most important signing in the history of Mexican and Latin women’s football -American.
Sexual assault
Despite an absence during Euro-2022, she was recalled to the Spain team for the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. The oldest player in the adventure, Jennifer Hermoso wants to battle it out and share her experience with her partners. In the second match against Zambia, she scored two goals, thus honoring her 100th cap with the national team and scoring her 50th goal. With her team, she reached the final against England. Spain wins the match thanks to a goal from Marta Cardona and obtains its first World Cup.
Jennifer Hermoso finally made her dream come true. She is world champion. But the player will barely have time to savor her consecration. During the medal ceremony, she was kissed on the lips by surprise by Luis Rubiales, then president of the Spanish Football Federation.
The image went around the world and sparked a wave of indignation. A few days later, the young woman broke her silence and denounced an act that was “sexist, inappropriate and without any consent”. She files a complaint against Luis Rubiales, who claims that it was only a “little consensual kiss”. But, under pressure, he was finally forced to resign. He is charged with “sexual assault” by the Spanish justice system and suspended for three years from any football-related activity by Fifa.
Read alsoIn Spain, the forced kiss affair “showed the response of civil society”
“To change the mentalities”
The attack on Jenni Hermoso causes shock waves in Spanish women’s football, part of an already difficult context within the national team. Players have been denouncing for months the methods considered “dictatorial” of the coach, Jorge Vilda, who benefits from the unwavering support of his president. Jennifer Hermoso supported this movement of “frondeuses” who boycotted the selections, but she herself continued to play for the team, judging that it would “always be a pride and a privilege to be called there” whatever the context.
After the Rubiales affair, the players decided to boycott the selections again for several days, demanding “immediate and profound changes” within the federation. Across the world, Jennifer Hermoso receives massive support from the football community. Banners and t-shirts with the slogan “We are all Jenni” are deployed on fields in Spain, the United States and Mexico.
Outside of the football world, the wave of solidarity with Jennifer Hermoso is spreading on social networks. Under the slogan #SeAcabo (“it’s over”), thousands of people, mostly women, publicly denounce their attackers and recount cases similar to those suffered by the player.
“I want to be remembered as a person who wanted to take Spain to the top, but above all as a person who tried to change mentalities,” Jennifer Hermoso told GQ Spain in November , who voted her woman of the year 2023, in her first interview since the forced kiss affair.
The 33-year-old, who made a triumphant return to La Roja last October and has just signed with Mexican club Tigres Femenil, says she now wants to “enjoy her sport”. She also hopes that the #SeAcabo feminist movement will open “a new era” for women’s sport.