The Prosecutor’s Office of the National Court requests two and a half years in prison for the former president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) Luis Rubiales for the kiss he imposed on the mouth of the soccer player Jennifer Hermoso after the final of the Women’s World Cup and the alleged coerced the soccer player and several of her close friends to appear publicly in a video to downplay the importance of that kiss. He attributes crimes of sexual assault and coercion to him.
The Public Ministry also requests a year and a half in prison for the sports director of the men’s team, Albert Luque, the former coach of the women’s team Jorge Vilda and the former marketing manager of the Federation Rubén Rivera for the coercion to which they subjected the player to say that the kiss had been consensual. In addition, he demands that the accused compensate the soccer player with 100,000 euros. The Federation has removed both Luque and Rivera from their duties this Wednesday, according to Cadena SER.
In her indictment, the lieutenant prosecutor of the National Court, Marta Durántez, concludes that Rubiales “gave” Hermoso a kiss on the lips “in a surprising manner and without the player’s consent or acceptance.” And that, subsequently, “given the personal and professional consequences that could result,” he and the rest of the accused began to exert “constant and repeated acts of pressure” on both the player and her family and friends. All, says the prosecutor, with the purpose of publicly justifying and approving “the kiss that the former president of the RFEF had given him against his will.”
The writing gives credibility to the story of the soccer player, who in her statement before the judge last January said that the kiss was unexpected and at no time consensual and that, in the hours and days that followed, she and some of her family and friends suffered. constant harassment by Rubiales and people around him. According to the prosecutor, the “pressure” to which the player was subjected created “a situation of harassment that prevented her from developing her life in peace, tranquility and freely.”
On the other hand, Rubiales defended that kiss as “something natural” between two people who have lived together for a long time and denied having pressured the player, according to excerpts of his statement published by The Spanish. “How am I going to apologize if we were both super happy?” She said during the interrogation to try to justify that act, which was broadcast live on television around the world. After that statement, the judge prohibited him from approaching less than 200 meters from the athlete and communicating with her while the investigation progresses. The other three investigated also denied coercion.
Faced with this version, the prosecutor gives a detailed account of what happened in her writing. Thus, he explains that on August 20, 2023, in Sydney, at the moment when Hermoso was receiving the protocol greeting and congratulations from the president of the RFEF, Rubiales held his head with both hands and “in a surprising manner and without consent or acceptance of the player” gave him a kiss on the lips.
Subsequently, Rubiales and the rest of the accused began to exert “constant and repeated acts of pressure” on the player and those close to her, which, according to the prosecutor, created in Hermoso “a situation of anxiety and intense stress, which lasted for several years.” months later”. In her writing, the prosecutor recalls that Luque, Vilda and Rivera were “trusted people” of Rubiales, that they accepted their positions under his mandate and that their “privileged situation” in the RFEF depended, therefore, on their fate. that of its president.
“Constant and repeated acts of pressure”
Regarding the coercion, the writing focuses on several milestones to unravel its existence: Rubiales’ request for Hermoso to leave the locker room in the “moment immediately after the medals were awarded”, what happened on the bus that took him to the players to the Sydney airport, the events that took place inside the plane that brought the delegation back to Spain and what happened in the following days in Ibiza, where a dozen players enjoyed a few days of vacation paid for by the RFEF.
Regarding the locker room, the prosecutor maintains that Rubiales asked the RFEF women’s football director, Ana Álvarez Mesas, to send Hermoso out because she wanted to talk to her. The player agreed and at this first moment the former federation president asked her to make a statement in which she publicly accepted the “kiss she received.” But Hermoso said that he did not agree and that he was under no obligation to make that statement.
Moments later, already on the bus, the prosecutor says that “she was forced to get off the bus hastily” so that she “signed a press release written by the RFEF communication team” by order of Rubiales. This exculpatory statement ended up being sent to the media even though the player did not share its content nor had she had any intervention in it.
In relation to the flight, the prosecutor says that it was first Rubiales who tried to get the player to agree to appear in a video with him, stating that the kiss had been consensual. But she refused. So after asking advice from his “trusted team,” always according to the prosecutor, Rubiales asked Vilda to talk to the player’s brother. The letter states that the then coach “warned her that if her sister did not agree to participate in the video, this would have negative consequences for her, both personally and in her professional career as a soccer player.”
The other key scenario to unravel the alleged coercion is the aforementioned trip to Ibiza that the RFEF paid for the players. The other two defendants moved there: Rubén Rivera and Albert Luque. According to the order, at the request of Rubiales, the former insisted to the soccer player that she had to participate in the video and asked her “repeatedly and persistently” to speak by phone with the person in charge of integrity of the Federation. That committee had opened a file regarding the events that occurred in Sydney in which the exculpation of Rubiales was sought “by forcing the statements of those involved to be changed and providing partial experts in his favor,” the prosecutor’s brief maintains.
Given the repeated refusals of the soccer player, Luque entered the scene and, “in agreement” with Rubiales, went to Ibiza to get the player to participate in the video. She went to the hotel where the soccer player and a friend were staying and tried to “force” Hermoso to talk to him, to which she refused. According to the document, finally, and in the face of the emphatic refusal, Luque sent a message to Hermoso’s friend insisting on her request for help to justify Rubiales’ behavior.
In that message, the prosecutor states, Luque alluded to the fact that the player, due to her age, had two years left in her career and that if he helped her at this moment he could surely get her a position in the RFEF. She also accused Hermoso of being a bad person, wished that she would find herself very alone in life and announced that she would be happy if that happened.
Source: www.eldiario.es
