Euro 2022 winner Jill Scott He was “disappointed” with that World Cup kiss saga Attention has been diverted from Spanish women’s national team Wins.
The former England midfielder said The Independent that issues within Spanish football had “overshadowed” the team’s “fantastic football”.
Her comments come after the president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation Luis Rubiales The player was constantly criticized for kissing player Jenny Hermoso on the lips after Spain’s 1-0 victory over England last month.
Rubiales, who was also convicted of grabbing his genitals after Spain won the women’s world title for the first time in history, refused to step down over his behavior but was suspended by FIFA.
This came as Jorge Vilda, coach of the Spanish women’s national team, announced. It was launched on Tuesday Having been among those praising Rubiales’ refusal to step down.
Scott said she was “disappointed” that the kiss was “the main talking point” rather than Spain winning the World Cup.
“I know there are girls who decided not to go to the World Cup because they weren’t happy with the way things were going. For me it’s very sad because it’s a dream to play in the World Cup.
“I was very lucky to have done it four times, which is something you dream about when you’re a little girl, and you think it’s been taken away from them. First of all, it’s sad.”
Talking to The Independent In a wide-ranging interview, the lioness also discussed the bullying she experienced as a little girl playing soccer at school. She said people often thought she was a boy because she played soccer and wondered how girls could play the game.
The 36-year-old said it was “unusual” to see girls playing soccer at the time, and said she sometimes suffered worse bullying from her parents rather than her classmates.
She added: “Sometimes, for fathers, if a young girl at that time – I’ll go back 30 years – hit their son, it was a little embarrassing.”
Scott said she would attend soccer camps where she was the only girl alongside 50 boys, as well as go to soccer tournaments where she was the only girl.
The former soccer player said that although she was better at soccer than some of the boys, she “never wanted the special treatment for being a girl”.
“I just wanted to play football and when I was a little kid I didn’t understand why it was such a big deal that I just wanted to play football,” Scott added.
And she continued, “Once I crossed that white line, that was where I wanted to be. I can escape from everything.”
Her comments come as new research by Starling Bank found that three in 10 girls stop playing football when they reach their late teens – a much higher rate than the one in 10 boys who stop playing the sport.
Researchers, who surveyed 2,000 girls aged 11-16 in the UK, found that more than a quarter of girls quit football because of pressure to do well at school. Meanwhile, 14% quit playing due to insecurities about their physical image, and 8% quit football because they were bullied for playing the game.
Scott, who is an ambassador for the bank, said social media pressure is partly to blame because it puts pressure on girls to make them feel they have to look a certain way.
“It’s kind of a perfect world, isn’t it, to a certain extent,” she said. And I think we’re all guilty of doing that. We don’t want to post a photo unless you look good or if it’s filtered.
Scott explained that she has coached soccer for girls ages 13 to 15, and you can see that they don’t want to “get involved” or “don’t want to get sweaty” because of worrying about their looks.