Last Friday, the Prosecutor’s Office filed a complaint for sexual assault and coercion against the former president of the Spanish Football Federation, Luis Rubiales, accused of having kissed the captain of the women’s soccer team without her consent during the World Cup final.
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A historical precedent in the world of football. The judge of the National Court Francisco de Jorge summoned the former president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, RFEF, Luis Rubiales, for this Friday to give his testimony as an investigator in the case opened against him for alleged sexual assault against the soccer player Jenni Beautiful.
The summons comes one day after admitting to processing the complaint filed by the Spanish Prosecutor’s Office against Rubiales for the crimes of sexual assault and coercion, the magistrate called the former director to appear before the Central Court of Instruction number 1.
The judge seeks “the investigation of the facts reported” by the Prosecutor’s Office, which considers that Rubiales could have sexually assaulted the soccer player by giving a kiss, without her consent and while holding her head with both hands, as well as the crime of coercion by the pressure that the soccer player and her entourage supposedly received to justify the episode publicly.
The judge has already ordered to collect all the videos and images that documented that kiss that Rubiales gave to Hermoso “from all angles”, and also the documentation of the minutes before and after the kiss, while the women’s team celebrated the victory in the World Cup. Sydney, Australia.
The court asked to analyze the videos of the celebration in the locker room and also on the bus.
Hermoso made her complaint against Rubiales official in an appearance in which she confirmed that the kiss was not consensual and reported that both she and those around her suffered pressure to support Rubiales’ version.
“I felt vulnerable and a victim of aggression, an impulsive, sexist act without any type of consent on my part. “I was not respected,” Hermoso said in a statement after the incident.
Rubiales: “this error is not what many people say”
But the former director of the Royal Spanish Football Federation insists that the kiss was consensual. “I have faith in the truth and I will do everything in my power to make it prevail. “My daughters, my family and the people who love me have suffered the effects of excessive persecution, as well as many falsehoods,” Rubiales said in a statement.
Rubiales resigned on Sunday from his position as director of the RFEF, after being in office for more than five years and being provisionally disqualified by FIFA for ninety days.
The manager gave an interview to the controversial journalist Piers Morgan to talk about his resignation from the presidency of the RFEF. In the interview, Rubiales assures that the kiss with Jennifer Hermoso was “like any one I could give to my daughters.”
“Many women have told me: ‘I am with you. You have made a mistake, but that is not what they are saying.’ I will not say a percentage, but it has comforted me that many people support me. They are not defending a mistake, but this error is not what many people say,” Rubiales said in the interview.
The interview generated even more controversy and put Rubiales in the eye of the hurricane. When asked about the alleged pressure he exerted on the soccer player and her entourage after the kiss, Rubiales said that “I have never pressured anyone on anything. I categorically deny it. I have not pressured or sent anyone to pressure Jenni. Jorge Vilda He hasn’t pressured anyone.”
Global condemnation of the case
After initially dismissing the incident, Rubiales shared a video apologizing and justifying his action by reiterating that he would not resign from his position due to the incident.
The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, described the act as “an unacceptable gesture” and said that the apologies “are not enough” and “are not appropriate.”
The condemnations were immediate, social leaders, professional players, coaches, the Association of Spanish Footballers, clubs and the Spanish women’s professional football league, asked for Rubiales’ departure.
The scandal gained worldwide notoriety. The case “shows the generational and cultural line between deep traditions of machismo and the more recent progressivism that has put Spain at the European vanguard on issues of feminism and equality,” wrote The New York Times.
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