Spain international Jenni Hermoso told a court today her former boss’ unwanted kiss after she helped her country win the women’s World Cup ‘stained’ one of the happiest days of her life.
The 34-year-old striker said she felt ex-Spanish FA president Luis Rubiales had ‘abused’ her as a woman by kissing her on the lips without her consent on the medal podium after her team’s 1-0 triumph over England in Sydney in 2023.
She told the Audiencia Nacional court in Madrid she had been reduced to tears after accusing Rubiales and his aides of trying to pressure her into claiming the kiss was just a ‘spur-of-the-moment’ peck on the lips which hadn’t bothered her.
Rubiales looked on impassively as Hermoso took the stand on day one of the ‘Kissgate’ trial to claim he had done something which was ‘wrong’ as a superior and had contributed to leaving her ‘completely unprotected’ as he and his management team tried to salvage their reputations in the ensuing media storm.
The 47-year-old dad-of-three is accused of sexual assault and coercion over the kiss and his subsequent alleged behaviour.
Public prosecutors want him jailed for a year if convicted of the first offence and handed an 18-month prison sentence if found guilty of coercion.
Spain international Jenni Hermoso said ‘kissgate’ ‘stained’ one of the happiest days of her life
Luis Rubiales is accused of sexual assault and coercion over an unwanted kiss on Hermoso
Former Spain head coach Jorge Vilda, ex-men’s team director Albert Luque and former Spanish FA marketing director Ruben Rivera are Rubiales’ co-defendants and are facing 18-month prison sentences if convicted of coercion.
Taking the witness stand at just after 10.20am today in a black roll-neck sweater and grey jeans, Hermoso said: ‘From the first day it was clear to me I wanted to denounce what happened.’
Recalling how she greeted Spain’s Queen Letizia and the royal’s then 16-year-old daughter as she went to collect her World Cup-winning medal before coming face-to-face with Rubiales, she said: ‘I told him, “What a blast we’ve had” and he replied: “We’ve won this World Cup thanks to you.”
‘He put his hands on his ears and then came the kiss.’
Telling public prosecutor Marta Durantez during questioning the former Spanish FA boss grabbed hold of her head ‘forcefully’ and didn’t give her any time to react, she added: ‘It was a thousandth of a second.
‘I felt it was totally out of context. My boss was kissing me and what was happening shouldn’t occur in any working context.’
Asked whether she felt ‘abused’ as a woman, she added: ‘Yes, I felt very little respect. Luis Rubiales never asked if I wanted a kiss before he kissed me.
‘It was a moment that stained one of the happiest days of my life.’
Rubiales, the former Spanish FA boss, arrived early at court for the 11-day trial in Madrid
Hermoso testified on the first day and said she immediately wanted to denounce the kiss
She also alleged she was put under pressure to claim the kiss had in fact been consensual
Claiming the pressure on her to tell the world Rubiales had kissed her on the lips in the excitement of the moment and that it hadn’t bothered her started almost immediately, she said she was called off the team coach by a press officer who showed her a statement she was supposed to have penned herself.
Hermoso told the court: ‘I skim-read it and said and knew I hadn’t written a word of it.
‘It was a statement I had supposedly drafted myself and consented to being put out to fan the flames of the fuss that was being created by the kiss.
‘The statement said Luis Rubiales and I were good friends and the kiss happened in the effusiveness of the moment. I said I didn’t agree to it going out.’
Saying Rubiales himself approached her during a stopover in Doha on the plane on the way back to Spain, where the former Spanish FA boss’s daughters Lucia and Ana were travelling, she added: ‘He helped me to assist him by doing a video with him because of all the social media reaction.
‘I told him I wasn’t going to do anything, that I wasn’t the one who had started things. He told me “Please, my two daughters are in the back of the plane crying.”
‘I repeated that I wasn’t going to do it and I remember him saying he had a girlfriend at that time and it hadn’t bothered her.’
Alleging then-manager Vilda had approached her brother on the plane to try to put pressure on her to change her mind, she said: ‘I felt totally unprotected in what should have been a safe place for me which was my team.
‘No-one asked me if I needed anything. The only thing Luis Rubiales and his aides did was to try to protect their reputation.
‘From the first moment I reached Spain I had cameras after me 24 hours, people following me, people taking photos while I was having breakfast with my family.
Former Spain boss Jorge Vilda is a co-defendant and faces an 18-month prison sentence
‘I had to leave Madrid with my family.
‘I felt fear at times of being in the street. I received death threats and messages of all types and we had to leave Madrid because the situation was unbearable. It was a change in my life and I still say my life changed from that minute.’
Asked how many times she had been asked to put out a press release or statement supporting Rubiales, Hermoso said: ‘Too many to count. The situation prevented me from enjoying being a World Champion.’
Two of Rubiales’ three daughters, the ones who were on the plane, are due to give evidence on his behalf next Monday.
Barcelona striker Alexia Putellas, part of the women’s World Cup-winning team, will give evidence on Hermoso’s behalf on Thursday. Other witnesses include the current Spain manager Luis de la Fuente.
Rubiales, who resigned from his post in 2023 and was charged last year after a long-running criminal investigation, has said of the daughters who could now come to his rescue in court: ‘They are very strong, stronger than me.
‘I consider myself to be a tough guy, but when it comes to my daughters it’s not normal.’
He said at the Spanish FA extraordinary general assembly in August 2023, in a direct attack on the likes of Spain’s then-Equality Minister Irene Montero when he was still insisting he would never resign: ‘I want to say looking at my three daughters who are over there that today they have to learn a lesson about what equality is.
‘Equality is not differentiating when there is an opinion between what a man says and what a woman says. You have to differentiate between truth and lies, and I am telling the truth.
Rubiales has accused Hermoso of ‘false feminism’ and said he has ‘a clear conscience’
He could be given a separate 18-month prison sentence if he is found guilty of coercion
‘Daughters, learn it, it is a life lesson. You are real feminists, not the false feminism that is out there.
‘This false feminism does not seek justice, truth, it does not care about people.’
He told Spanish news website El Espanol in an interview at the start of last year: ‘My daughters love me and I know they are proud of me, just as I’m proud of them.
‘They’re normal girls who go to university and school and see that the majority of people can’t believe what’s happened and don’t believe Jenni.
‘That brings them some comfort and they say to me, “Look daddy”. Everyone knows that person is lying.’
Speaking to a Spanish TV station at the weekend as she arrived at Madrid’s Barajas international airport from Mexico, Hermoso replied when asked how she was: ‘Looking forward to all this being over, to tell you the truth.
‘I’m being 100 per cent consistent in how I feel all the time and that’s what’s important.
‘I maintain the kiss was unwanted. I’m confident justice will be done.’
Public prosecutors said they wanted Rubiales to pay Hermoso £85,000 in compensation
The ‘Kissgate’ trial is taking place without a jury and is due to finish on February 19.
The judges’ verdict is expected to be delivered at the end of this month at the earliest in writing and even if he is convicted and handed a prison sentence Rubiales could delay his incarceration by appealing.
In any case prison sentences of two years or less are normally suspended for first-time offenders.
As well as a prison sentence public prosecutors also said in their pre-trial indictment they wanted Rubiales to pay Hermoso £85,000 in compensation if he is convicted.
