Wives of Mallorca players say they were harassed after Spanish Super Cup game in Saudi Arabia

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — The wives of two Mallorca players say they were harassed by local fans after a Spanish Super Cup game played in Saudi Arabia that ended in a victory for Real Madrid.

Cristina Palavra, wife of Mallorca midfielder Dani Rodríguez, told a Spanish television reporter that she and the spouse of goalkeeper Dominik Greif were targeted by a group of men upon leaving the King Adbullah Sports City stadium on Thursday.

“The exit was a bit complicated. We left with our kids and we had no security. The truth is that some men from this country started taking photos of us from close up and were harassing us," Palavra told Esports IB3. "The same thing happened to Natali, the wife of Dominik Greif. I was with my daughter, who was asleep. We felt uncomfortable. We didn’t have anyone to protect us. The exit was very bad.”

Natalia Kaluzova, Greif’s wife, told Spanish sports daily Marca in English that the men “made videos of us and pushed us and they groped us, shoved phones in our face and filmed us.”

Club officials for Mallorca said that some 250 people were harassed as they exited the venue.

Other Mallorca fans and Spanish media who made the trip to Jeddah related the same details as Palavra and Kaluzova. Marca reproduced a video shot by a mobile phone which appeared to show several men wearing Real Madrid jerseys taking videos and laughing as the group of Mallorca fans walked past to board chartered buses.

Quique Darder, father of Mallorca midfielder Sergi Darder, compared the insults and harassment of the women in their group to a “siege” that lasted 15 to 20 minutes before the buses arrived.

Mallorca club official Alfonso Díaz told Esport IB3 that there “was groping” of women, which he called "completely unacceptable.” He added that the club immediately informed the Spanish soccer federation and that he was confident that the organizers would take whatever means needed to ensure “it doesn’t happen again.”

The Spanish soccer federation told The Associated Press that its own security personnel “acted as soon as they had knowledge of the incident.”

The incident reopens the debate about the decision by the federation under former president Luis Rubiales to take the Spanish Super Cup to Saudi Arabia in 2020 in exchange for $40 million a year. At that time, Rubiales responded to criticism by women’s and human rights groups who cited the regime's poor treatment of women and minorities by arguing that it would help local women, some of whom do attend the matches.

Saudi Arabia’s record on women’s rights will be front and center of scrutiny by many countries in the buildup to the 2034 World Cup that FIFA awarded the country last month.

“Spanish soccer has to evaluate what direction we want to take and where we should go, but that is for the federation to decide,” Mallorca club official Díaz said.

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