Spanish ladies’s World Cup winner Jenni Hermoso is proven on the tv testifying as journalists are pictured within the press room in the course of the trial on the Nationwide Court docket, Madrid, Spain on February 3, 2025. — Reuters
MADRID: Spanish ladies’s World Cup winner Jenni Hermoso confronted former soccer federation boss Luis Rubiales at his trial on Monday, saying she didn’t comply with the kiss that triggered a nationwide backlash towards sexism in sport.
“I knew I was being kissed by my boss and that should not happen in any social or work environment,” Hermoso stated of the encounter seen dwell by tens of millions world wide on the 2023 World Cup awards ceremony in Australia.
“I think it was a moment that tainted one of the happiest days of my life,” the 34-year-old ahead instructed Madrid’s Excessive Court docket whereas Rubiales took notes with out taking a look at her.
Rubiales, 47, is accused of sexual assault after which trying to coerce Hermoso – with the assistance of three different males – into declaring that the kiss had been consensual.
Although he apologised for being over effusive, Rubiales denies these prison prices and has solid himself as a scapegoat.
Requested by a prosecutor at Spain’s Excessive Court docket if she had agreed to the kiss, Hermoso replied: “Never”.
“I didn’t hear or understand anything,” she added, trying nervous at first however then calm as she took questions for greater than two hours. “The next thing he did was to grab me by the ears and kiss me on the mouth … I felt disrespected.”
World Cup win overshadowed
Rubiales has stated the kiss was consensual and within the aftermath he initially scoffed at critics as “idiots” earlier than then penning an apology because the affair blew up.
Interrogated by the defence a couple of video within the dressing room during which she seems to say “alright” when requested what she stated to Rubiales within the second, Hermoso stated she had additionally defined that she didn’t prefer it.
The scandal eclipsed Spain’s first ladies’s World Cup victory and proved a tipping level for efforts by Spain’s feminine gamers to reveal sexism and obtain parity with male counterparts.
“All this meant I couldn’t enjoy at all being a world champion after I landed back in Madrid,” stated Hermoso, who performs for a Mexican membership in addition to Spain’s nationwide group.
Rubiales and his co-defendants – former ladies’s nationwide group coach Jorge Vilda, former Spanish soccer federation (RFEF) sporting director Albert Luque and the RFEF’s former head of selling Ruben Rivera – will testify on or after Feb. 12.
Some sectors of Spanish society, together with right-wing events, have described the trial as a witchhunt, saying the kiss was impolite at worst however not against the law. Some Rubiales supporters on social media level to a photograph of Hermoso on the group bus exhibiting a meme of the kiss on her telephone and laughing.
In her testimony, Hermoso stated that amid the euphoria and champagne within the dressing room, teammates initially made enjoyable of the kiss. However she stated one, Irene Paredes, intervened, saying: “Stop, this is serious.”
Strain from Rubiales and the RFEF to defuse the scandal started nearly straightaway, Hermoso stated, relating how she was pulled apart and requested to consent to an announcement minimizing the incident, which she stated she refused.
Jail sentence sought
Hermoso stated she realised the extent of the scandal in the course of the flight residence when she observed motion within the enterprise class part they had been in with folks huddled round Rubiales’ seat and his daughters crying.
At one level, she stated she went to the toilet and bumped into Rubiales, who requested her to report a video with him as a result of he was being accused on social media of assault.
“I said no, that I was not going to do anything, that I was not the cause of this,” Hermoso instructed the courtroom.
She stated Rubiales stated he would converse to her household and he or she requested him to depart them out of it.
The prosecution is looking for 2-1/2 years’ jail for Rubiales.
The scandal sparked a strike by Hermoso’s teammates and noticed a number of heads roll on the federation, with each Rubiales and his right-hand man and successor being ousted and a girl appointed to educate the ladies’s group for the primary time.
