The former president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), Luis Rubiales, ratified his version of the non-consensual kiss to Jenni Hermoso - the same one he gave at the organization's assembly - and told the judge that the kiss was accepted by the player who had just won the world championship: "She left laughing and slapping me twice. How can I apologize if we were both super happy?"
This is reported by El Español, which has had access to the former president's statement on September 15 before the central investigative judge Francisco de Jorge. Rubiales is now being investigated for alleged crimes of sexual assault and coercion.
This is her story: "At the medal ceremony I was hugging the players, the coach, when she passes by. She comes towards me to give me a hug. We hug, she lifts me up and I make a gesture to not fall, all this with a conversation in which I remind her - because she had missed a penalty - to cheer up a little, that without her we couldn't have won the World Cup. She tells me that I'm a crack, thank you very much. And then I ask her, I ask her. And she tells me it's okay."
Rubiales assures that the act of grabbing his head responds to "the joy" of the moment. "She grabs me wherever she can, I grab her too and that's it. Two or three minutes later they all grabbed me and pulled me up, they swung me. And at that moment I'm not going to say that they shouldn't touch me, sorry." , the butt, the knees or the shoulder. We have won a World Cup and the tremendous euphoria and joy there is is something indescribable."
Rubiales, who justified that episode in the "effusiveness" and "spontaneity" of the victory celebration - "it's like when you win the lottery, the war in Ukraine ends or you win a World Cup." "We won a World Cup, there are signs of affection. This is not that someone has secretly taken someone to an office to forcibly kiss them. No. It was something so natural, in the light of millions of eyes, among two people who have been living together for a long time," Rubiales said.
Regarding the pressure on the player and her entourage to appear in a joint video, she noted that from "the Federation, the Presidency, and Communication", they advised her to explain what happened publicly and told her that "it would be fantastic" if Jenni appeared. also with him.
On this issue, the former president accuses Hermoso of lying. According to her statement, it is not possible that this happened in the places where she claims to have suffered pressure. "In the locker room tunnel the kiss was not yet a cause for concern. How am I going to say 'help me' with something that doesn't cause me any problems?"
During the plane trip, Rubiales does admit to having asked Hermoso to appear together to say "you've already said it, we'll say it again, we're done with this, this is going to hurt me a lot." According to the version reported by El Español, the conversation lasted "about 15 seconds," and Jenni refused despite her insistence.
Rubiales, in his statement, does acknowledge that it was former women's coach Jorge Vilda who decided to go to Jenni Hermoso's brother to talk to her after the kiss scandal at the World Cup in Australia, because "he is a reasonable guy."
"I didn't even know that the brother was coming on the plane. I found out later because Jorge Vilda, who was sitting behind me, told me: 'I came from talking to Jenni's brother, who is a reasonable guy and such, and he's going to talk to her (sic)," Rubiales declared on September 15 before the judge of the National Court.
The player's version, included in the Prosecutor's complaint, is that Rubiales and her entourage subjected her and people in her closest circle to “constant and repeated pressure” to justify and publicly approve an act committed “against his will". The prosecutor, based on the victim's testimony, understands that she suffered "a situation of harassment, against the development of her life in peace, tranquility and freely."
In addition to him, Jorge Vilda, the director of the men's team, Albert Luque, and the RFEF Marketing Director, Rubén Rivera, are being investigated in this case for pressuring the player and those around her to say that the kiss was consensual. .
