Jenni Hermoso, player of the Spanish women’s soccer team, testified today as a witness and victim before the judge of the National Court investigating whether there was sexual assault and coercion as a result of the kiss that the former president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation gave her. (RFEF) Luis Rubiales during the celebration of the Spanish victory in the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. The athlete has confirmed that the kiss was not consensual.
According to sources present at the interrogation, Hermoso has maintained his statement before the Prosecutor’s Office. He has maintained that the kiss was unexpected and at no time consensual.
Subsequent to this event, the player explained to the judge that the situation experienced by the victim, both the flight back to Spain and her stay in Ibiza, by those investigated was one of “constant harassment” that altered her normal life. producing a situation of “restlessness and sadness.”
At the end of the statement and leaving the headquarters of the National Court, Jenni Hermoso thanked the journalists for the support received during this time, explained that she was “strong” and limited herself to stating that, after her statement, “everything remains in the hands of of justice.”
According to sources present at the interrogation, the instructor asked the player if she became increasingly aware of the “seriousness” of the events. Hermoso confirmed the judge’s suspicions and added that he came to terms with what happened as the hours and events went by.
The head of the Central Court of Instruction Number 1, Francisco de Jorge, initially summoned her for November 28, but Rubiales’ defense requested the postponement because the appearance coincided with another judicial process.
Hermoso has been the last to testify in a case in which Rubiales is being investigated for alleged crimes of sexual assault and coercion. The player already testified before the lieutenant prosecutor of the National Court, Marta Durántez, before proceedings were initiated. He told her that she did not feel respected. “They were subjecting me to something that I never looked for or did anything to find myself in that situation,” she said at the time.
“The first thing I said to him when I hugged him was ‘what we got into’. He jumps on me, I stand firm to support us. When he came down he told me that ‘we won this World Cup thanks to you’. The next thing I remember is his hands on my head and I don’t remember hearing anything else,” the Madrid native then explained.
And he added: “At no time was it consensual. I didn’t feel respected, I wasn’t respected either as a player or as a person. “I was experiencing something historic, I did nothing to find myself in that situation.”
In her ratification before the judge, Hermoso clarified that she did not write the first RFEF statement in which Rubiales’ kiss was downplayed, although she did not say that she had not authorized it. She has also qualified an interview that she did those first days on a radio in which she downplayed the seriousness of what happened. She now says that at that time she already said that she didn’t like her kiss.
The player has once again insisted that Rubiales told her on the plane back to help him for his daughters and that coach Jorge Vilda did the same with his brother.
After the celebration, and still in the stadium, the director of Women’s Football, Ana Álvarez, spoke with her, as did the press officer Patricia Pérez. The commotion over the kiss was already beginning to have an impact and the RFEF prepared a statement relieving Rubiales of responsibility. Pérez made her get off the bus that was transporting the team and showed it to her. She asked for her approval and the player responded that they should do whatever they wanted given the impossibility of opposing her publication.
Rubiales, in his statement before the judge, assured that the kiss was nothing more than “a display of affection” that arose “naturally” before “millions of eyes” and “with consent.” He insisted that he asked him “before,” so he concluded: “How can I not respect him?” Furthermore, he told the judge that after the kiss, Hermoso “left dying of laughter” and giving him “two slaps on the side.”
Jenni Hermoso has confirmed before the judge that Rubiales went to look for her in the locker room, still in Sydney, and if he later also approached her in Doha, where the team stopped before arriving in Madrid from Australia to ask her to go out with him in an explanatory video . Furthermore, she has insisted that there was pressure from those around her and workers at the federation, who tried to convince her to come out in defense of the president, who was finally suspended by FIFA and resigned three weeks later.
As he already told the prosecutor, Rubiales’ pressure occurred on the flight back to Spain, where Rubiales asked him to appear in an exculpatory video for him. “You have to help me, and do it for my two daughters who are there crying on the plane,” the former president of the RFEF told him. “He was asking me to help him solve an act that he caused. I didn’t feel like he had to help anyone.”
From that moment on, they no longer pressured her, but then other RFEF officials addressed her family and friends. Former coach Jorge Vilda spoke with Hermoso’s brother, her cousin and her boyfriend: “They let my brother know that if I helped him, I would do well.” Both Vilda and the director of the men’s team, Albert Luque, are accused in the case.
Soccer player Laia Codina, who testified as a witness, told the judge that the kiss was not consensual and supported the version given by her teammate. She confirmed that there was pressure after the controversy for the soccer player to support the version that the RFEF initially gave in its press release.
Other teammates such as Alexia Putellas, Irene Paredes and Misa Rodríguez also appeared before the National Court to ratify this version. And, in turn, most of the rest of her teammates have spoken about it publicly, either in interviews, as has been the recent case of the current Ballon d’Or winner, Aitana Bonmatí; or through social networks, in support of her partner.
For his part, the director of the National Women’s Football Committee, Rafael del Amo, denied before the investigating judge that there was pressure on the footballer. However, he admitted that during the days after the victory at the World Cup in Australia there were conversations with her to try to reach an agreement on the version that the RFEF would give about her kiss.