The journalist girlfriend of Spain’s goalkeeper was accused of breaching professional ethics on Wednesday after she reported on live television from behind the net ahead of the country’s World Cup loss to Switzerland.
Sara Carbonero, whose boyfriend is Spain’s number one keeper Iker Casillas, is a television journalist for Spain’s Telecinco channel, part of the network owned by Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi.
British newspapers last week showed a picture of her, reporting from behind the net just a few feet (metres) from Casillas during the warm-up for the match against Switzerland.
Spain lost the match 1-0, with Casillas at least partly to blame for the goal, and the British papers speculated that her presence may have distracted him.
After the game, Carbonero interviewed Casillas on live television.
“It’s a disgrace,” the head of the Madrid press association, Fernando Gonzalez Urbaneja, said on Wednesday. “As a journalist she must know that you shouldn’t get emotionally involved in the stories you are covering. If she wants to become a good professional, she should not be tempted by bad practices,” he told a news conference. Telecinco immediately condemned the remarks and defended Carbonero. “The placing of journalists on the field is done by Fifa which decides that the accredited journalists are placed behind the goal posts of their respective national teams,” it said in a statement.