Football charges in kissing scandal
“Concerns the area of intimacy reserved for sexual relationships”
As of: 2:31 p.m. | Reading time: 2 minutes
At the award ceremony after Spain’s World Cup final victory over England in Sydney, Rubiales grabbed Hermoso’s head with both hands and kissed her on the mouth
Quelle: picture alliance/ATP photo agency/Richard Callis/SPP
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A good five months after Spain’s world champion Jennifer Hermoso kissed her on the mouth, charges have been brought against former football association head Luis Rubiales. He faces several years in prison. The erotic nature of the act plays a major role in the assessment.
Spain’s former football association president Luis Rubiales and three other officials have been officially charged in the kissing scandal. The responsible examining judge at the State Court in Madrid, Francisco de Jorge, decided this on Thursday, the judicial press office said upon request.
The investigations and hearings of the witnesses revealed that the controversial kiss that Rubiales gave world champion Jennifer Hermoso on the mouth at the World Cup medal ceremony in Sydney on August 20th was “non-consensual,” the court said in a written statement .
If the charges are admitted in court and Rubiales is convicted, experts say he would face several years in prison. It was initially unknown when the oral hearing on sexual violence could begin.
Pressure was put on Hermoso
According to the court’s announcement, the criminal trial will involve a legal assessment of the question of whether the kiss had an erotic character and to what extent it took place in a state of euphoria about winning the world championship title. In this case, there is evidence to suggest that the kiss on the lips “concerns the area of intimacy reserved for sexual relationships, particularly in the context of two adults,” the judge wrote. However, de Jorge did not name any specific criminal offenses at this stage of the proceedings.
Rubiales and Jennifer Hermoso. She says she “felt like a victim of an impulsive, sexist and inappropriate act that I did not consent to.”
Source: dpa/John Cowpland
The judge also charged Rubiales and three soccer officials with coercion against Hermoso. Rubiales, as the then president of the RFEF football association, as well as the sports director of the men’s selection, Albert Luque, the then coach of the women’s national team, Jorge Vilda, and Rubén Rivera, who was responsible for marketing at the RFEF, put pressure on Hermoso to say in a video about the kiss was done with her consent. However, she had always denied that. Rubiales, who was banned by FIFA for three years and by the Spanish Court of Arbitration for Sport as a result of the scandal and had to resign as RFEF boss, asserts that Hermoso agreed to the kiss.
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