Spain’s former soccer federation boss Luis Rubiales has been discovered responsible of sexual assault for kissing participant Jenni Hermoso with out her consent and ordered to pay a wonderful of €10,800 (£8,942), Spain’s Excessive Court docket has dominated.
He was acquitted of coercion, for allegedly making an attempt to stress Hermoso into saying publicly that the kiss was consensual.
As Spain’s gamers obtained their medals after defeating England in Sydney to win the 2023 World Cup, Rubiales grabbed Hermoso by the pinnacle and kissed her on the lips.
The incident triggered protests and requires Rubiales’s resignation.
The ruling additionally banned Rubiales from going inside a 200-meter radius of Hermoso and from speaking together with her for one yr, the court docket mentioned in an announcement.
Three of Rubiales’s former colleagues who had been additionally on trial, accused of colluding within the alleged coercion – Jorge Vilda, coach of the World Cup-winning facet, Rubén Rivera, the Actual Federación Española de Fútbol (RFEF)’s former head of selling, and Albert Luque, former sporting director – had been cleared of these prices.
Prosecutors had demanded a jail sentence for Rubiales, who final week instructed a court docket he was “completely positive” Hermoso had given her consent earlier than he kissed her.
He described the kiss as an “act of affection”, including that within the second it was “one thing fully spontaneous”.
In her testimony earlier this month, Hermoso insisted that she had not given Rubiales permission and that the incident had “stained one of many happiest days of my life”.
Rubiales was accused of sexual assault and of making an attempt coerce Hermoso into saying the kiss had been consensual.
The incident was witnessed by hundreds of thousands of tv viewers and a complete stadium after the Spanish ladies’s group gained the 2023 World Cup.
The following uproar gave momentum to a “Me Too”-style motion within the Spanish ladies’s recreation, through which gamers sought to fight sexism and obtain parity with their male friends.
Rubiales resigned in September 2023 following weeks of resisting stress to face down, and after Fifa suspended him and Spanish prosecutors opened an investigation.
