Spain international, Jenni Hermoso told a court today that the unwanted kiss from former Spanish football chief Luis Rubiales after she helped her country win the women’s World Cup ‘stained’ one of the happiest days of her life.
The 34-year-old striker said she felt Rubiales had ‘abused’ her as a woman by kissing her on the lips without her consent on the medal podium after her team’s 1-0 triumph over England in Sydney in 2023.
She told the Audiencia Nacional court in Madrid she had been reduced to tears after accusing Rubiales and his aides of trying to pressure her into claiming the kiss was just a ‘spur-of-the-moment’ peck on the lips which hadn’t bothered her.
The 47-year-old dad-of-three is accused of sexual assault and coercion over the kiss and his subsequent alleged behaviour.
Public prosecutors want him jailed for a year if convicted of the first offence and handed an 18-month prison sentence if found guilty of coercion.
Former Spain head coach Jorge Vilda, ex-men’s team director Albert Luque, and former Spanish FA marketing director Ruben Rivera are Rubiales’ co-defendants and are facing 18-month prison sentences if convicted of coercion.
Taking the witness stand, Hermoso said: ‘From the first day it was clear to me I wanted to denounce what happened.’
Recalling how she greeted Spain’s Queen Letizia and the royal’s then 16-year-old daughter as she went to collect her World Cup-winning medal before coming face-to-face with Rubiales, she said: ‘I told him, “What a blast we’ve had” and he replied: “We’ve won this World Cup thanks to you.”
‘He put his hands on my ears and then came the kiss.’
Telling public prosecutor Marta Durantez during questioning the former Spanish FA boss grabbed hold of her head ‘forcefully’ and didn’t give her any time to react, she added: ‘It was a thousandth of a second.
‘I felt it was totally out of context. My boss was kissing me and what was happening shouldn’t occur in any working context.’
Asked whether she felt ‘abused’ as a woman, she added: ‘Yes, I felt very little respect. Luis Rubiales never asked if I wanted a kiss before he kissed me.
‘It was a moment that stained one of the happiest days of my life.’
Claiming the pressure on her to tell the world Rubiales had kissed her on the lips in the excitement of the moment and that it hadn’t bothered her started almost immediately, she said she was called off the team coach by a press officer who showed her a statement she was supposed to have penned herself.
Hermoso told the court: ‘I skim-read it and said and knew I hadn’t written a word of it.
‘It was a statement I had supposedly drafted myself and consented to being put out to fan the flames of the fuss that was being created by the kiss.
‘The statement said Luis Rubiales and I were good friends and the kiss happened in the effusiveness of the moment. I said I didn’t agree to it going out.’
She said Rubiales himself approached her during a stopover in Doha on the plane on the way back to Spain, where the former Spanish FA boss’s daughters Lucia and Ana were travelling, she added: ‘He helped me to assist him by doing a video with him because of all the social media reaction.
‘I told him I wasn’t going to do anything, that I wasn’t the one who had started things. He told me “Please, my two daughters are in the back of the plane crying.”
‘I repeated that I wasn’t going to do it and I remember him saying he had a girlfriend at that time and it hadn’t bothered her.’
Alleging then-manager Vilda had approached her brother on the plane to try to put pressure on her to change her mind, she said: ‘I felt totally unprotected in what should have been a safe place for me which was my team.
‘No-one asked me if I needed anything. The only thing Luis Rubiales and his aides did was to try to protect their reputation.
‘From the first moment I reached Spain I had cameras after me 24 hours, people following me, people taking photos while I was having breakfast with my family.
‘I had to leave Madrid with my family.
‘I felt fear at times of being in the street. I received death threats and messages of all types and we had to leave Madrid because the situation was unbearable. It was a change in my life and I still say my life changed from that minute.’
Asked how many times she had been asked to put out a press release or statement supporting Rubiales, Hermoso said: ‘Too many to count. The situation prevented me from enjoying being a World Champion.’
Two of Rubiales’ three daughters, the ones who were on the plane, are due to give evidence on his behalf next Monday.
Madukwe B. Nwabuisi is an accomplished journalist renown for his fearless reporting style and extensive expertise in the field. He is an investigative journalist, who has established himself as a kamikaze reporter.
