The Prosecutor’s Office complicates – even more – the judicial ordeal facing Luis Rubiales. A week after learning that he will be arrested when he returns from the Dominican Republic for an alleged case of corruption with the contracts of the Super Cup, the former president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) learned yesterday that the public ministry is asking to the National Court to sentence him to two and a half years in prison for the kiss without consent and the alleged subsequent coercion of national team player Jennifer Hermoso.
Specifically, he requests a year in prison for a crime of sexual assault, and a year and six months for a crime of coercion as a perpetrator. The second request for conviction is the same as that claimed for the rest of the defendants: the former coach of the women’s team Jorge Vilda; the marketing director of the Federation, Rubén Rivera, and for the director of the men’s team, Albert Luque. The Spanish Federation reacted yesterday, according to Ser, removing Luque and Rivera from their duties.
In addition, the Prosecutor’s Office proposes that Rubiales compensate Hermoso with 50,000 euros for the kiss and that the former president himself, along with the other defendants, also compensate the player with 50,000 euros plus the alleged coercion.
In a harsh document, to which La Vanguardia had access, prosecutor Marta Durántez assumes that Rubiales kissed Hermoso on the lips “in a surprising way and without consent or acceptance” of the player. And from there, in view of “the personal and professional consequences that that action could cause him”, the former president began to exercise – along with the rest of the accused – “constant and repeated acts of pressure directly on the player […] with the aim of publicly justifying and approving the kiss he gave her against her will”. As a result of these pressures, according to the prosecutor’s report, Hermoso suffered “a situation of beatings that prevented him from developing his life in peace, tranquility and freedom”.
The coercions, as can be seen from the document, were carried out in several acts. The first of which, after the medal presentation, when Rubiales asked the director of women’s football of the RFEF, Ana Álvarez, to get Hermoso out of the dressing room to talk to her. There he asked him to make a public statement with which the victim did not agree. Next, on the bus on the way to catch the flight that would take them back to Spain. There “they forced her to get out of the vehicle hastily” so that she could sign a press release, the content of which she “did not share”. Despite this, it was sent to the media.
Already on the return flight, Rubiales, after several conversations with his trusted team, of which Vilda was part, decided to use another way of pressure through relatives of Hermoso who were traveling on the same plane. The accused praised Hermoso in front of his brother Rafael with “the sole purpose” of convincing her to make the demonstration. If he didn’t do it, Rubiales warned, “it would have negative consequences”.
During the trip to Ibiza at the end of August to celebrate the victory, Rivera and Luque came into play so that he could participate in a video in which he exonerated Rubiales. Hermoso did not change his position. In view of “the resounding negative received”, the prosecutor points out, Luque sent several WhatsApp messages to a friend of Hermoso in which he “expressed his anger and alluded to the fact that the player, due to her age , he had two years left in his career, and that if he helped him at that moment he could surely get him a position in the Federation. The public ministry concludes by pointing out that “the situation of flogging of the accused towards Hermoso ceased when Rubiales was provisionally suspended by FIFA on August 26, 2023”.