The Spanish National Team player Jenni Hermoso declared to questions from the Prosecutor's Office that the kiss given to her by the former president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) Luis Rubiales was not consensual nor did she feel respected as a person and footballer. "They were subjecting me to something that I never sought or did to find myself in that situation," she revealed.
In the statement before the Prosecutor's Office, presented by the Telecinco program Code 10, the soccer player narrated the moment in which she received the kiss after Spain won the Women's World Cup. According to her story, she hugged Rubiales and stated: "The one we have mixed up." After her, the former president of the RFEF jumped on her and commented "we won this World Cup thanks to you."
"The next thing was his hands on my head and then I didn't hear anything else. I saw myself with the kiss on my mouth and I immediately went down to the stage with my companions," Hermoso recalled when asked by the prosecutor of the National Court Marta Durántez. "I didn't even expect it," added the athlete.
At this point, the soccer player recalled that the World Cup victory was a "historical event" that cost "a lifetime to achieve." "At no time could I expect something like this to happen in the end (...) In a trusted person "I don't think anyone would expect that I was going to use that moment to do something like that, no matter how spontaneous it was," reproached Hermoso, who also explained that when he got off the stage he told what happened with Rubiales to his teammates Alexia Putellas and Irene Paredes. .
Expressly questioned about whether the kiss was consensual and if she felt violated or violated, Hermoso responded yes: "Clearly I felt not respected. At that moment I was not respected at any time, neither as a player nor as a person, I was experiencing something that It was historic," he added.
According to Hermoso's story, once the champions were in the locker room, the sports director of the National Team, Ana Álvarez, came in and told her that the president needed her, so she went out to the door and Rubiales insisted that they were talking. "a lot" of the kiss and tried to explain the action "again."
Immediately afterwards, Rubiales and Hermoso entered the girls' locker room and "diverted the topic a little" by announcing that they had a paid trip to Ibiza for having won the World Cup. "There I think he was already a little nervous and, of course, I was next to him and he picked on me all the time," explained the player.
"He grabbed my shoulder like that and started saying that we had a paid trip to Ibiza and people started shouting and continuing to celebrate," he said.
According to her story, inside the locker room the soccer players were not aware until they saw the image of what was happening, so when they asked Jenni to leave the locker room she already imagined what they were going to talk to her about and began to feel " a little uncomfortable." "And seeing that something more serious was happening than what had happened was not something very normal," she said.
Already on the bus, Rubiales' team ordered Hermoso to get off the bus, at which point the RFEF press chief, Patricia Pérez, showed him a statement to stop the kiss controversy and "remove the issue." . "I said: 'do what you want,'" revealed Hermoso, who also confessed that the text that was written in her name did not include any words spoken by her.
Given this, the prosecutor insisted on whether she felt coerced, to which the player answered yes: "I was feeling like I was forced to do something," she added.
Hermoso continued with his presentation in response to the prosecutor's questions, pointing out that Rubiales wanted to talk to her on the plane. He asked her, according to the player, that he had to help her because of the controversy that arose as a result of the kiss. "I felt very uncomfortable," she stressed, while saying that the former president of the Federation demanded that the two of them appear in a video to settle the matter.
Faced with his refusal, Rubiales insisted. "You have to do it for my two daughters who are crying," she expressed according to the player's version, that she once again felt coerced by her superior. At that moment, a teammate from the National Team tells her that former coach Jorge Vilda is trying to contact her family so that they can convince her that he had to talk and downplay her kiss.
