Last league day, two young footballers made headlines for making their debut with the first team of their respective clubs: Raúl Asencio at Real Madrid and Ferran Ruiz at Girona FC. Not only did they occupy the media spotlight the same weekend, but they also shared a dressing room in the Madrid youth academy and, in addition, the two have an open criminal case for the crime of revealing secrets of a sexual nature and child pornography.
The case dates back to September 2023, when the Civil Guard arrested three Real Madrid youth players for recording and disseminating a video without consent in which they had an intimate relationship with a minor. The defendants’ mobile phones were tapped and it was discovered that the players in question sent the video to five teammates and 32 other people.
While awaiting trial, this event is reminiscent of another that occurred in 2016, when two SD Eibar footballers, Antonio Luna and Sergi Enrich, were arrested and later sentenced to two years in prison for the dissemination of a similar video.
The sentence came in 2021, five years after the events, and neither before nor after said sentence did either of them have problems continuing to play for different teams. In these cases it is worth asking about the clubs’ protocols.
If we do a quick count, we can find in Spain no less than half a dozen cases in which football clubs acted elusively, if not complicitly, with players accused of some type of sexist violence.
This same season, last September, footballer Rafa Mir was arrested and accused of two sexual assaults pending trial. His club, Valencia CF, resolved the matter with a financial sanction and two games without playing. Another case is that of Getafe CF, which had no qualms about signing Mason Greenwood last year, an English player accused of sexist violence against his partner.
FC Barcelona is not exempt either: it withdrew Dani Alves’ legend player status when the sentence condemning him to four years and six months in prison for sexual assault became known. But it was granted again just a few hours later.
For its part, RC Celta delayed the termination of its player Santi Mina until the Andalusian TSJ ratified the conviction for sexual abuse. The Vigo team also did not take any action in the case against its then captain Hugo Mallo, accused in 2019 of sexual abuse for touching a woman who worked as a mascot cheerleader for RCD Espanyol in the run-up to the match between the Catalans and Galicians.
The player did not apologize to the victim or show remorse; not even after the Provincial Court of Barcelona ratified the sentence. While Celta did not take any action, Espanyol did accompany its employee and provided her with legal support during the five years that the judicial process lasted, as she herself has acknowledged on several occasions before the media.
Referred to the judicial case
“I am not dedicated to being a judge. As long as there is a presumption of innocence, I respect it.” This is what Quique Cárcel, the sports director of Girona FC, said at a press conference, given the avalanche of criticism on networks from fans dissatisfied with the signing and participation in the first team of Ferran Ruiz.
Valencia also hid behind the presumption of innocence in the case of Rafa Mir. And, in addition, he also made use of the sports law, which includes the right of effective occupation, which stipulates that players cannot be removed from the field except in the case of injury or sanction.
The club shielded itself from criticism and defended its decision not to fire Rafa Mir with the excuse of avoiding problems for breaking the law, as has recently happened to Manchester City. At the beginning of November, a ruling from the Manchester labor court was made public that forces the club to pay close to 13 million to Benjamin Mendy.
This French player was accused of six cases of rape in 2021, which is why City decided to freeze his salary for the remainder of their contractual relationship. But the defender was acquitted and took the club to court. Finally, Mendy won the court battle and Manchester must pay him everything they did not receive.
Due to precedents like this, clubs tend to be very careful when accusations become known once the contract has already been signed. A different case is that of Girona, which brought in Ferran Ruiz when the judicial process had already begun and accusations were already being made against the player. The club decided to hire him anyway, but included a clause in his contract: it could be broken in the event of a conviction.
Codes of conduct, a possible tool
Júlia Humet, a lawyer specialized in sexist violence, recognizes that when a legal procedure has been initiated it can be problematic for the club – or any company – to make drastic decisions until there is a ruling. But he assures that “there are other ways to position yourself firmly. “There may be a more forceful public stance.”
The psychologist specialized in violence Núria Iturbe points to the code of conduct, a tool with which teams could be much stricter if they wanted to. “Sport is becoming more and more sensitive to the fight against racism and no one is surprised that a club expels a fan from the field when it has indications that the fan has uttered racist insults,” explains Iturbe.
This expert assures that companies have the ability to impose certain standards of conduct and that, when legal excuses are resorted to, “basically it means that they are looking for a period of two or three years to show that nothing has happened.” .
Furthermore, Humet recalls that “contracts can be terminated as long as you are willing to pay compensation. Another thing is that the club does not want to spend that money but, just as they invest it in advertising campaigns, do they not want to use it to disassociate themselves from causes of sexist violence?
And the image that the clubs project is important, as actors that exert a lot of influence in society. Furthermore, accusations of violence related to footballers always have a lot of projection, which means that, according to Iturbe, clubs have a responsibility towards the victims.
“The media impact makes victimization permanent. Especially because in media cases there is a double judgment,” says the psychologist. Although the women’s version is usually questioned, in cases in which she – usually anonymously – denounces a famous and admired man, the questioning intensifies.
The clearest example in this sense is that of the footballer Rubén Castro, accused in 2013 of sexist violence against his ex-partner. The then Real Betis player received extensive support from his fans. So much so that part of the stands created a chant that they chanted during the games: ‘Rubén Castro alé, Rubén Castro alé. It wasn’t your fault. She was a whore, you did it right.’
The club did not act forcefully and, in fact, even chose Castro as one of the protagonists of an initiative consisting of changing the white of the Betis shirt to pink on the occasion of ‘Betis Women’s Week’. Although it is true that he called the chants “disgusting,” he criticized the sanction imposed by La Liga and the National Anti-Violence Commission, calling it “unfair, opportunistic and discriminatory.”
“There is an intragender pact of complicity between men to legitimize their power. And in part it has to do with the lack of consequences on the part of the clubs,” says Laura Castells, member of the observatory on sexual violence Noctàmbules.
And there are cases in which clubs not only remain silent, but openly take sides for their players, as is the case with the Paris Saint-Germain player, Achraf Hakimi. When in March 2023 the French Prosecutor’s Office formally accused the Spanish-Moroccan of rape, the former coach of the Parisian team, Christophe Galtier, said at a press conference on behalf of the club that “PSG supports Hakimi and trusts in justice.” Since then and while the open case continues, neither the club nor its current coach, Luis Enrique Martínez, have changed their position.
The result of this silence on the part of the teams results in the blame falling on the complainant, “as if she were the one who could have done something to avoid it,” says Castells, who insists that the responsibility does not rest solely with the clubs. . “Also from the media or fans who decide to separate ‘the other’ from what is really important, which is football, as the Spanish National Team players said in that statement about Rubiales.”
The proliferation of cases in men’s football
Various studies have confirmed that, in part, the increase in the number of complaints is explained by the awareness-raising tasks and the tools available to victims to raise their voices in these types of situations. Therefore, it is not surprising that more and more cases of footballers accused of some type of sexist violence come to the fore.
Last week the sentence of two years in prison for sexual assault for the former Sevilla FC footballer, Wissam Ben Yedder, was made public; Also last week the BBC revealed that there is a Premier League footballer, whose identity has not been revealed, who is being investigated following the complaint of five women for sexual assault.
Given this increase in cases, can we conclude that football is a particularly favorable place for sexist violence? Castells only half agrees: “It is true that traditionally football has been a very masculine and masculinized world. But it does not stop reproducing the patterns that occur in other spheres of society. Even so, it is true that there is something that stands out in football and that is the feeling of impunity.”
Núria Iturbe fully agrees with this: “Sexual violence has to do with inequalities of social power and being a footballer, young, rich and famous is a form of social power.”
Whether out of conviction or simple commercial strategy, football clubs have been taking small steps to join society’s progress in terms of equality, feminism or anti-racism. However, the experts consulted emphasize that there is a lack of will to end impunity when it comes to sexist violence. At the moment, the majority of clubs – at least in Spain – refer to judicial processes as a scale to decide to what extent they should be involved.
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