Jenny Hermoso emphasized having suffered “intense coercion by several former members of the Royal Spanish Football Federation” to record a video in which she minimized the non-consensual kiss that Luis Rubiales gave her during the celebration of the Women’s World Cup in Australia 2023. Part of that ordeal was the trip that the champions made to Ibiza after the conquest in Sydney, according to what he said during the first day of the trial in which the former president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation is accused.
Asked how many times she was asked to express herself publicly to normalize what happened at the awards ceremony, she said there were “countless times”. Among them, she listed what happened in the dressing room, on the bus that took them to the airport, on the way back to Spain and on a trip that the delegation made to Ibiza.
“They were quite insistent, the situation was overwhelming. I really could not enjoy what it is to be world champion and nothing else,” described Hermoso in relation to Rubiales and other defendants who were part of the RFEF, such as the former coach of the Spanish women’s national team, Jorge Vilda, the former head of marketing of the RFEF, Ruben Rivera, and the former sports director of the Spanish men’s national team, Albert Luque.
The four accused of coercion plead not guilty. In the case of Rubiales, the Prosecutor’s Office The defendant asks for two and a half years in prison, for crimes of sexual assault and coercion. The rest of the defendants face sentences of one year.
About the moment of the kiss, the soccer player has reaffirmed that it was not consensual. And he described that Rubiales grabbed his head with force. “With an effusiveness of me not being able to react at any time. I knew I was being kissed by my boss and that should not happen in any environment,” he said. “I was disrespected.”
About the first pressures received, Hermoso said in the hearing: “I was in the locker room and they told me that I needed to come out, that there was a lot of talk about the kiss. I told them, ‘I know how it was and it wasn’t right.” He tried to deflect the issue a bit and told us that we had a paid trip to Ibiza for as many of us as we wanted. He would grab me, grab my shoulder because I was next to him. Then I started to feel uncomfortable and I saw that something more serious was going on. That what had happened was not normal and was not normal at any time.”
The trip to Ibiza
In that same locker room, Rubiales said that a trip to Ibiza was available for the players to celebrate the world title. And on the island of Ibiza, both Rubiales and other members of the federation insisted Hermoso to record the video to lower the temperature of what was then a scandal.
“In Ibiza there was a lot of coercion, even with family and friends,” said the player in an interview with ‘Planeta Calleja’, in which she gave more details: “As I arrive in Ibiza, with Ruben, Marketing Director of the Federation, he passes me his phone and Miguel Garcia, who was the Integrity of the federation, tells me that I have to make a Zoom immediately to tell the truth, what happened, that the kiss was silly and that’s it. I ask him if I am obliged, and he tells me that ‘yes, we have done it and we will do it with other people. This is in the protocol of the Federation. It is a moment’. I tell him I don’t know what he’s talking about and that I have to talk to my agents to see how I have to proceed.”
“I told him that I would pass him my agency’s contact but that I don’t have a battery. Ruben was still by my side, I told him that I would send it to him and Ruben took the phone and told me that he would charge it for me. After 5 minutes he came back and asked me if I could have the phone. I tell him to leave me alone, I had just arrived in Ibiza, with two days without sleep. He told him to leave the phone,” added Hermoso.
Rubiales, for his part, did not exchange glances with Hermoso during the hearing. He will testify on February 12.
