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The president of the Spanish football federation (RFEF) has apologised to Real Mallorca supporters six days after they were harassed at the Super Cup semi-final in Jeddah, with the Balearic government inviting him to reconsider the decision to hold the tournament in Saudi Arabia.
At the end of their 3-0 defeat by Real Madrid last Thursday, players’ families and Mallorca fans who had travelled to the game alleged they were surrounded and subjected to abuse from local fans supporting Real Madrid on their way out of the King Abdullah stadium. Some female supporters are said to have been sexually harassed. The wife of the midfielder Dani Rodríguez, Cristina Palavra, described moments of “genuine panic” and denounced a lack of protection.
“Leaving the stadium was difficult,” Palavra said, once they had been able to board the charter flight back to Spain. “Not only did they hassle and follow us with their mobiles from close up, surrounding us as I had the children in my arms, they also slapped some fans.”
Natalia Kaluzova, the partner of the goalkeeper Dominik Greif, said: “They came into the group and [were] doing videos of us and pushed us, they groped us, shoved phones into our faces and filmed us.” Sara Noguera, the partner of the midfielder Manu Morlanes, said: “I was with two friends who had their bottoms touched. They were laughing at us, pointing at us, pushing us.”
A Mallorca fan intervened when another supporter was inappropriately touched, according to the mother of the defender José Manuel Copete.
One fan was quoted as telling the newspaper El Mundo: “On the way out, they created a passageway, they buffeted us, they slapped us, they tried to take flags and scarves, they touched the women, they tried to hug them. There were very tense moments. It was a nightmare.”
In a social media post, Kaluzova wrote: “They tried to get in our group, they pushed us, they filmed us without consent, they laughed at us. We couldn’t even go to the bathroom because we received unpleasant sexual comments. They followed us all the way to the buses and then hit the windows. The RFEF did not protect us.”
The Spanish federation contacted Mallorca after the game and conversations have been ongoing, with attempts made to find footage. But it was not until Wednesday, at an event in Valencia, that the new president of the RFEF, Rafael Louzán, spoke publicly about the incidents.
“What I have to do is apologise to all the fans that travelled there, which was around 100 people,” Louzán said. “They were more than 5,000km from home and from the information we have there was some sort of problem on the way out of the stadium. So I apologise and I am sorry that they have suffered difficult moments.”
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He added: “This edition [of the Super Cup] has been very successful in that it has probably been one of the most followed we that have held in Saudi Arabia and we hope to return there and that situations like this do not happen again.”
On Wednesday Jaume Bauzá, the councillor for tourism, culture and sport in the Balearic government, wrote a letter to the RFEF in which he said that security had failed. “The women present were literally scared in the face of local supporters who crossed the most basic lines when it comes to respect and did not hold back in harassment, touching, photographing and denigrating the fans,” he wrote. “These incidents oblige the Spanish Football Federation to reconsider whether the country chosen is the ideal host for the Super Cup. The safety and dignity of fans who, with such feeling and effort follow their clubs, is just as important as profit and visibility.”
The mayor of Palma, Jaime Martínez, said: “They [the RFEF] have to weigh up whether the contract they have to continue [in Saudi Arabia] is worth is that income if it comes at the cost of dignity.”
