Allegations of rape in football: what do they reveal?

PSG player Achraf Hakimi was accused of rape. This joins the list that includes Daniel Alves or Manchester City footballer, Benjamin Mendy. Such cases provoke the indignation of those who consider football the last stronghold of machismo and misogyny. It is argued that many sexual assaults do not get a conviction because, as happened with Cristiano Ronaldo, the victim reaches an economic deal with the player, who can buy his silence.

At the same time, studies conducted around rape trials involving famous female athletes concluded that these cases also served to activate exculpatory discourses. This is how stereotypes are nurtured about a “predatory woman” who waits after every training session to seduce any player, the one who goes to parties with the same goal and the one who would invent any episode with a football player, even a fake one. sexual assault, to gain notoriety or force the player to negotiate compensation.

Sexual assaults allegedly committed by football players show the disparity of opinion that the issue of violence and gender causes. Some believe that this news is magnified by those who are interested in promoting a certain feminist ideology. And that in most cases the footballers are released, as happened with Benjamin Mendy —justified for six counts of rape— or Ruben Semedoalso acquitted of gang rape.

Just the opposite, some studies have found a link between sexual violence and certain sports. Anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday found that rape of women increased in contexts where three factors concurred: recognized and encouraged aggressive practices, male dominance, and gender segregation. Football would tend to promote the idea among the athletes themselves that just as aggression must be used to achieve achievement on the field, some kind of force is needed to satisfy desire off it.

On the other hand, it would presuppose a context of hypermasculinity in which the model of masculinity would be built against a child, a homosexual and a woman. There are few places and professions where men live among their own sex almost all the time. Sport would sanctify the segregation regime. The last person who could enter the locker room would be a person of the opposite sex.

objectification of women

A former football player tells me that he left the WhatsApp group with former colleagues because there are some who just send pornographic videos all day long. That women are still objectified as sexual objects consumption data youporn. It can be thought that an unhealthy conception of sexuality still prevails in part of society. But this does not mean that these football players are potential rapists.

Now, for a player who has been drawn into a violent and misogynistic culture since childhood, football can contribute to prolonging and strengthening certain macho ideas, at the same time that attitudes of intimidation are justified or that they even glorify certain types of power. Sexual conquest, then, is similar to subduing a rival. If society makes them heroes, they might misinterpret that they are above good and evil and have the right to take what they want.

Of course, on the other hand, any debate related to football stars will encourage less lively debates and inflame similar confrontations to those that are common on the issue of sexism and gender violence in any other context. People seem to express their opinions about these episodes of sexual violence with a certain ferocity and bias no less than that which appears when judging this fascinating and contradictory sport, which brings out the best and worst of human nature.

*Alberto del Campo Tejedor is a professor of social anthropology at the Pablo de Olavide University.