The countdown has already begun. Magistrate Francisco de Jorge, instructor of the National Court, waits at 12:00 this Friday for Luis Rubiales, former president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), to question him about the non-consensual kiss he gave to the player Jennifer Beautiful after the final of the Women’s World Cup held in Sydney (Australia). The former director arrives at this meeting as a defendant, and with the weight on his back of a complaint from the Prosecutor’s Office that attributes to him a crime of sexual assault and another of coercion. The expectation is maximum.
Media from all over the world have been interested in the scandal that has overwhelmed Luis Rubiales, who is now forced to make the famous short walk to enter the National Court. He continues to defend his performance to this day and, among all his excuses, he has even stated this week that he would have also kissed a player from the men’s team if he had won the World Cup. “When I was a player there were many moments – when we avoided relegation, when we achieved promotion or won a title – in which there were all kinds of kisses, including what we call peaks in the mouth,” he said in an interview in a British chain.
Despite attempts to justify himself, after three weeks clinging to the position, the judicialization of Rubiales case has finally given the finishing touch to the former federation president. The manager resigned as president of the RFEF last Sunday, two days after the National Court Prosecutor’s Office decided to pursue criminal proceedings and filed a complaint against him. In its complaint, the public ministry put two crimes on the table: one of sexual assault (due to the non-consensual kiss) and another of coercion (due to pressure on the player and her environment to publicly ratify Rubiales’ version). The Penal Code punishes both provisions with prison sentences, although it also contemplates the possibility of only imposing a fine.
“Jenni picked me up.”
Since the World Cup final, far from calming the waters, Luis Rubiales’s attitude has fueled the scandal. The former president of the Federation has insulted and threatened with legal action those who have criticized him (also members of the Government); He has presented himself as a victim of “false feminism”; and he has charged against Jennifer Hermoso, whom he accuses of lying. Even in the days after the kiss, he took shelter under the umbrella of the RFEF and called an unusual extraordinary assembly that ended with part of the attendees standing and applauding him (among them, the selectors Luis de la Fuente and Jorge Vilda, the latter already dismissed). “I’m not going to resign,” Rubiales shouted at that meeting, then entrenched in his position.
However, his fall was a matter of days. On August 26, the FIFA Disciplinary Committee provisionally suspended him. And, now officially evicted from the top of power, Rubiales began the downhill slope that ended with his resignation. “What I have left is to defend my dignity and I will defend myself with my arguments,” he argued in the interview broadcast on a British channel, where he maintained his main lines of defense: “Jenni picked me up and we had that fleeting kiss, lasting two tenths of a second.” , but what was created from there is crazy […] What there was was a spontaneous, mutual act that both consented to, which was carried by the emotion of the moment, happiness. I maintain that that is the truth of what happened.”
This thesis is contrary to what was stated by the player, who stated in a statement: “I felt vulnerable and victim of an attack, an impulsive, sexist act and without any type of consent on my part. […]. “I was not respected.” According to the public ministry, during her statement at the headquarters of the State Attorney General’s Office, Hermoso added that, both she and those closest to her, “suffered constant and repeated pressure from Luis Rubiales and his professional environment, so that he justified and approved the facts.”
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