MADRID (Reuters) – Spanish club Getafe are changing the name of their stadium following the sexist comments made by former striker Alfonso Perez.
The venue had been known as the Coliseum Alfonso Perez in honour of the Getafe-born player even though he had never played for the club’s senior team.
The La Liga side and Getafe townhall said in a statement that the stadium will be renamed ‘Coliseum’ following Perez’s disparaging comments about women’s football.
Perez told El Mundo newspaper over the weekend female soccer players should not be paid as much as men because they do not generate as much income and media coverage.
“Female football has evolved, but they have to keep their feet on the ground and know that in no sense can they be equated to a man footballer,” he said.
Getafe townhall said the municipal venue, which is on loan to the soccer club, must be “an example for transmitting positive sporting values such as equality, solidarity and respect”.
The decision comes at a moment of reckoning in Spain after the country’s former football federation president Luis Rubiales kissed Jenni Hermoso on the lips following Spain’s World Cup victory. Hermoso denied Rubiales’ claims that the kiss was consensual and later accused him of sexual assault.
Rubiales’ actions overshadowed the team’s World Cup triumph and snowballed into a “Me Too” moment that had been building for years as the players fought to combat sexism and achieve parity with their male peers for nearly a decade.
(Reporting by Emma Pinedo, editing by Andrei Khalip and Pritha Sarkar)
