The intention is laudable, but the result is catastrophic. Friday March 8, Real Sporting de Gijon, a Spanish second division football club, published a video to pay tribute to International Women’s Day. Missed. The video sparked controversy on social networks.
Armed with a bucket of water and a brush, a woman is filmed cleaning the white lines on the pitch at the El Molinon stadium, which hosts the first team’s matches. This task completed, she then draws a new line in another place on the lawn. An aerial view allows you to recognize the feminine sign of Venus. “A symbol that unites us from generation to generation,” writes the club on X (formerly Twitter) to accompany its video.
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“A woman cleaning? I’m crying” ; “The worst part is that someone thought it was a good idea”; “Someone is going to find themselves without a job,” we can read in bulk on social networks. Faced with the controversy, the club republished a video without the first part, the one where the woman in question does the cleaning, leaving only the tracing of the line. Too late, the damage is done.
Carlos Andrés Llamas, communications director of the Asturian club, apologized to the Spanish media Revelo. “When you provoke such a reaction, it is clear that the idea is poorly executed. The error is very serious, it’s a waste. The day is ruined,” he lamented, before explaining that “to paint the symbol of Venus and make it stand out, we had to erase certain lines. To do this, they had to be wet, as anyone would do, man or woman. We’re not stupid enough to make a woman sweep away.”