How long does it take for us to forget information that has impacted us? In the era of information overexposure, the time that passes from when an impactful or controversial piece of news breaks until it recedes into the second or third plane of the news is increasingly shorter. Now, that does not mean that the facts have disappeared as if by magic. Fourteen months ago, we learned that three Real Madrid youth players had been arrested and a fourth cited as being investigated for the dissemination of a video of sexual content with two girls, one of them a minor. In case there was any doubt, disseminating a video of sexual content without consent is a crime that can carry a prison sentence. And, according to the investigation, the video would have been sent to five other footballers from the white youth team and around thirty other people, accompanied by violent and humiliating comments towards the girls that have been filtered in all their literalness. 14 months later and still without a judicial resolution, two of these players have made their debut, on the last day of the League, with the first team of Real Madrid and Girona respectively. And, although it seemed that that information had faded into the second or third plane of the news, it has revived the controversy about the appropriateness of acting as if nothing had happened with footballers accused of a crime. “I am not dedicated to being a judge. He is a person and, as long as he has the presumption of innocence, I do not value the fact,” said Girona sports director, Quique Cárcel. Bad business. There is no judicial resolution, but the evidence draws a personal profile of these footballers, at the very least, not very defensible.
Quique Cárcel, sports director of Girona, in Montilivi
Clubs would have to have elaborate action protocols for uncomfortable situations
The question is: what do we expect from footballers? Just play soccer? Let them score goals and that’s enough? Totally legal. Do not judge, as Quique Cárcel says. But then we set the limit here and let’s not turn footballers into banners of I don’t know what values they represent just because we would like to think that they are a committed part of this society. Let’s not turn them into activists in the fight against violence, racism, bullying or war, since we have agreed that only They are footballers. It seems like a tricky option to me because, no matter how soccer stars they are, they are basically people who are part of this society and, therefore, have to comply with minimum commitments of coexistence. Its public projection only acts as a speaker for the rights and duties that all citizens should have. The judges will judge. And meanwhile, the clubs, instead of trusting that the facts have been forgotten, would have to have action protocols for uncomfortable situations in which there are sufficient indications that one of the his has broken one of these codes of coexistence that everyone would have to respect. Even those who only They are footballers.
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