Jenni Hermoso fits the last piece of the 'Rubiales case'

Jenni Hermoso's life entered a dizzying roller coaster on August 20, when the then president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), Luis Rubiales, grabbed the player's head with both hands and gave her a kiss on the mouth during the World Cup medal ceremony. The forward had just won the first star for the women's team, but that moment caused by the top manager (captured by television cameras) overshadowed everything. And nothing was going to be the same. Under the motto “It's over”, the internationals rose up against a leader who clung to the position of a Federation that exuded machismo and, accompanied by a wave of solidarity that crossed borders, they turned the system upside down. Now, more than four months after that moment, Hermoso is preparing to fit the last piece of the puzzle in the judicial investigation that was opened in parallel.

Francisco de Jorge, judge of the National Court, summoned Jenni Hermoso at 10:00 this Tuesday to take her statement. The judge, who opened the Rubiales case At the beginning of September, after receiving a complaint from the Prosecutor's Office, he considered that his investigations were “practically completed” and that, if there were no last-minute surprises, this interrogation would foreseeably be the “last.” Afterwards, the instructor must decide if he has sufficient evidence to propose that the former president of the RFEF or one of the other three defendants (Albert Luque, Jorge Vilda and Rubén Rivera) be tried.

The origin. At the end of August, when the scandal was taking over the media, the Prosecutor's Office was not convinced that criminal proceedings against Rubiales could prosper with the elements they then had on the table. The public ministry had received several complaints from individuals and associations, but did not open proceedings until the player issued a statement in which she reported that she felt “vulnerable” and “a victim of aggression.” It was a first step, which was followed by a forceful statement from Hermoso at the headquarters of the State Attorney General's Office. There, behind closed doors and before Marta Durántez, lieutenant prosecutor of the National Court, the soccer player described a story that went beyond the “non-consensual” kiss and that included a whole battery of pressures deployed within the Federation so that the front came out in public to “justify” the president's action.

The player's story became the main support of the Prosecutor's complaint – “I did not look for that moment nor did I do anything for this act to be carried out,” she said – and will serve as the basis for her interrogation this Tuesday. to whom he goes as a victim. Furthermore, her words have been reinforced at this time by nearly a dozen witnesses, who have supported her version: among them, four teammates (Alexia Putellas, Irene Paredes, Misa Rodríguez and Laia Codina). .

Two crimes. Judge De Jorge has focused his investigations on the two crimes that were put on the table in the initial complaint. When studying the first, one of sexual assault due to the kiss on the mouth, the judge has come across two opposing versions. Hermoso denies that she gave her consent—as, as several witnesses have stressed to the judge, she herself told them in the hours and days that followed. For his part, during his statement as a defendant, from which he emerged with a 200-meter restraining order, Rubiales stated that the athlete had given him the green light for the “piquito” and that she even “left dying of laughter.” of the medal delivery. To reinforce his thesis, the defense requested the appearance of two lip reading experts; who, however, could not confirm that the alleged victim consented, since the cameras captured her from behind.

The summary has delved into a second crime of coercion, due to the alleged pressure deployed in the hours and days that followed against the athlete and her entourage so that they would go out in public to downplay the importance of the action of Rubiales, who was increasingly cornered. At this point the other three defendants come into play: Jorge Vilda, who would later be dismissed from his position as coach of the women's team; Albert Luque, director of the national team (men); and Rubén Rivera, responsible for marketing of the Federation.

Pressures. Vilda's credibility is questioned. The coach denied that he participated in any type of coercion against Hermoso following the instructions of the president of the RFEF and even assured that he went to the player's family to inquire about her because he appreciated her. Other witnesses contradict him. Rafael del Amo, president of the National Women's Football Committee, explained to the judge that he saw how Rubiales told the coach that he should go talk to the forward's brother during the flight back to Spain from Sydney (Australia). And her brother, as well as a friend present in that conversation on the plane, added that Vilda pressured them and told them to think about the “personal and professional consequences” that the athlete could suffer.

With the same supposed objective, Luque and Rivera are placed in Ibiza, where the soccer players celebrated the title. Luque, very close to Rubiales, acknowledged that he tried to talk to Hermoso in the middle of the controversy (when she had chosen to isolate herself as much as possible); but he justified himself by saying that he was only looking to congratulate him on his success in the tournament. His version clashes with a cell phone message that he sent to a friend of the player and which read like this: “What is being done to Luis seems so unfair to me. Jenni's attitude seems so humanly base… So little empathy and humanity… A simple gesture: taking away a person [el] biggest brown of his life. Knowing that there is zero bad faith, jumping on the bandwagon of
killing him… So unfair […] Not receive the sports director of the RFEF and friend for two minutes? I only wish him in life, that he return what he is unfairly making a person pay.” For his part, Rivera alleged that he was on the island because, as a federation worker, he had organized the trip and acted as a kind of arranger for the World champions.

Armored cause. The expectation for this Tuesday is maximum. It is expected that, after a few months of calm, Hermoso's statement will return the Rubiales case in the eye of the hurricane. The impact was already huge in September and sources from one of the Central Investigative Courts assure that, in recent months, they have detected an increase in complaints filed for alleged crimes of sexual assault committed abroad, over which the National audience. Likewise, Judge De Jorge, who has been in this court for less than a year and who saw how these investigations became his first major media case, has tried to shield the summary to avoid leaks. The judge has stopped providing the parties with the audio and video of the interrogations, and warned the lawyers that crimes could be committed with these disclosures: especially after the testimony in the soccer player's Prosecutor's Office was released, who holds the status of victim of an alleged crime of sexual assault and who has already requested “protection” from the instructor to preserve his privacy.

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