Jenni Hermoso says on the trial of ex-Spanish soccer chief Luis Rubiales that the kiss ‘stained’ her 2023 World Cup victory.
Spain star Jenni Hermoso advised the trial of disgraced ex-football chief Luis Rubiales that the compelled kiss he gave her in 2023 “shouldn’t occur in any social or work setting”.
Prosecutors are searching for two and a half years in jail for Rubiales for sexual assault and coercion after his kiss on Hermoso following the 2023 Ladies’s World Cup closing sparked world outrage.
Rubiales, 47, denies the costs. He has referred to as the kiss an innocuous “peck between buddies celebrating” and denied any coercion.
“I felt it was completely misplaced and I then realised my boss was kissing me, and this shouldn’t occur in any social or work setting,” Hermoso advised the court docket on the opening day of the trial on Monday.
“A kiss on the lips is barely given once I resolve so,” she added.
The scandal that rocked Spanish soccer and wrecked the profession of Rubiales got here moments after Hermoso and her teammates had clinched World Cup glory, beating England within the closing in Sydney.
As Hermoso joined her teammates in gathering their winners’ medals, Rubiales clasped her head and kissed her on the lips earlier than letting her go along with two slaps on the again.
The act unleashed a public outcry at what critics deemed an abuse of energy and made Hermoso an icon of the struggle towards macho tradition and sexism in sport.
A latest reform of the Spanish legal code classifies a nonconsensual kiss as sexual assault.
“As a lady, I felt disrespected. It was a second that stained one of many happiest days of my life,” Hermoso stated on the trial.
“For me, it is extremely essential to say that at no level did I search that act, not to mention count on it.”
The trial on the Nationwide Court docket in San Fernando de Henares close to Madrid is scheduled to run till February 19.
