Hermoso appeared at a courtroom in Madrid to offer her model of the kiss by Luis Rubiales, which sparked a disaster in Spanish soccer.
Spanish World Cup-winning star Jenni Hermoso has informed a choose that the kiss forced on her by disgraced former Spanish soccer chief Luis Rubiales was “at no level consensual” and that she had come underneath strain to defend his actions.
Hermoso was on the Madrid courtroom on Tuesday to offer her model of the kiss following Spain’s victory over England within the remaining in Sydney in August.
The 33-year-old went to testify earlier than Decide Francisco de Jorge, who’s investigating Rubiales on allegations of sexual assault and coercion.
“Now, every thing is within the arms of the justice system and that’s all I can say,” she informed reporters on leaving courtroom a number of hours later.
“The judicial course of will proceed its course, and thanks for the help that lots of you had given to me.”
Throughout the incident on August 20, the then-head of Spain’s RFEF soccer federation held her head in each arms and forcibly kissed her on the lips after Spain gained the World Cup in Australia.
He has stated the act was “a consensual peck” however Hermoso has insisted it was not.
The incident sparked outrage throughout the soccer world and ignited one of many worst crises within the historical past of the game in Spain. It additionally led to a boycott of the nationwide staff by the World Cup-winning gamers, and Rubiales‘s eventual resignation regardless of his denial of wrongdoing and his assertion that the kiss was consensual.
Hermoso was anticipated to reiterate in courtroom her allegations that the kiss was undesirable and Rubiales and his workers tried to strain her and her household to downplay the incident that tarnished Spain’s first Ladies’s World Cup title.
The testimony was behind closed doorways. Spanish media stated Hermoso requested the choose to maintain her courtroom look as non-public as doable.
She arrived sporting a gray coat and waved to journalists earlier than getting into the courtroom via one among its foremost entrances alongside together with her legal professionals.
The choose can also be listening to testimony from different World Cup-winning gamers, coaches and federation officers, earlier than deciding whether or not to begin a trial.
Rubiales beforehand denied wrongdoing to the choose who imposed a restraining order on him to not contact Hermoso.
The 33-year-old Hermoso, the file scorer for Spain’s girls’s staff, stated final 12 months she obtained threats within the fallout from the kiss, although she didn’t elaborate.
Based mostly on a sexual consent regulation handed final 12 months, Rubiales may face a positive or a jail sentence of 1 to 4 years if discovered responsible, in line with the prosecutors’ workplace in Madrid. The brand new regulation eradicated the distinction between “sexual harassment” and “sexual assault,” sanctioning any unconsented sexual act.
Below Spanish regulation, a non-consensual kiss could be thought of sexual assault – a prison class that teams all kinds of sexual violence.
In October, the choose questioned three others over allegations in addition they pressured Hermoso – former girls’s coach Jorge Vilda, males’s staff director Albert Luque and RFEF advertising boss Ruben Rivera.
Quite a few different witnesses have testified in courtroom over the strain confronted by Hermoso, amongst them two-time Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas and two different Spanish teammates.
FIFA banned Rubiales for 3 years till after the lads’s 2026 World Cup. His ban will expire earlier than the following girls’s event in 2027.
He resigned because the federation president and as a UEFA vice chairman on September 10 amid mounting strain in Spain from lawmakers and gamers. Sooner or later later, UEFA thanked Rubiales for his service.
