Jenni Hermoso testified on Monday at the National Court that the kiss given to her by Luis Rubiales after winning the world football championship in Australia was not consensual, and she couldn't react to prevent it. "I couldn't react at any moment. I felt completely out of place, knowing that my boss was kissing me, and this should not happen in any social or work environment."
The presiding judge of the Criminal Court, José Manuel Clemente, has initiated a trial in which the Prosecutor's Office is requesting a total of two and a half years in prison for the former president of the Spanish Football Federation: one year for the kiss to the player (as alleged sexual assault) and one and a half years for pressuring her not to report the incidents (coercion offense).
After some interventions by the lawyers regarding the evidence to be presented, the judge called the plaintiff to testify. The questioning was started by the deputy prosecutor of the National Court, Marta Durántez, who focused her initial questions on highlighting that Hermoso reported the incident voluntarily and not under pressure from the Prosecutor's Office. Her intention "from the first day" was to report, she said.
In her subsequent responses, the player expressed how she felt when Rubiales kissed her on the podium in Sydney on August 20, 2023. "I felt disrespected. I believe it was a moment that tarnished one of the happiest days of my life, and it is important for me to say that I did not seek this act at any time, nor did I expect it. I was disrespected," Hermoso stated when asked if she felt "violated in her sexual integrity as a woman."
The prosecutor asked various questions about the existence of consent. "Did he ask you if he could give you a kiss, a peck?" "At that moment, I neither heard nor understood anything. The next thing, when he put his hands on my ears, was the act of kissing me on the mouth. [...] I neither felt nor saw any kind of question gestured with his mouth."
-If he had asked you that question, would you have agreed?
Apart from that kiss, for the coercion offense, also on trial with the same penalty request as Rubiales are the former women's national team coach Jorge Vilda; the sports director of the national team Albert Luque; and the former Marketing manager Rubén Rivera.
This criminal episode unfolded, according to the Prosecutor's Office and Hermoso herself -who is acting as a private prosecutor-, in Australia, on the return flight, and in Spain, over several days.
The first episode addressed in the interrogation occurred, according to Hermoso, in one of the stadium corridors. The president wanted to talk to her, they told her. "He said that there was a lot of talk on social media, that things were getting complicated, that we could stop this somehow. I told him 'you will face consequences because you know this is not right.' He said 'you know it was done with enthusiasm, in the moment'."
Before reaching the airport, she continued, they stopped on a bus, and they asked her to get off. The press officers then showed her a statement. "They told me to read it, that they had written this to send it to the news so that the commotion that was happening would calm down somehow and the fire would be put out. I hadn't written a single word of that statement." She refused to spread it.