Luis Rubiales, former president of the Football Association in Spain, was convicted on Thursday by forcibly kissing a member of the national team for women over the lips after the team won the 2023 World Cup.
The kiss of Mr. Rubiales for the player, Jennifer Hermoso, from a national scandal, launched deep discussions on sexual discrimination for a long time in Spanish football and became a moment in the #Metoo movement in Spain.
On Thursday, a Spanish court cleansed Mr. Rubiales from a separate coercion charge. To condemn the sexual assault, he fined Mr. Rubiales 10,800 euros, about $ 11,270.
In the receipt of the ruling, Judge Jose Manuel Verneadiz-Breito said that the kiss “is not the normal way to salute people who do not have an emotional relationship.” Mr. Rubiales also ordered not to go to 200 meters, or about 650 feet, from Mrs. Hermoso for one year. The court said that he could not contact Mrs. Hermoso and must pay her 3000 euros in exchange for “the morale that causes it.”
Judge Fernandez-Perito said that the amount is appropriate for the forced kiss, given the “time and space”-in full view of thousands of spectators on the stadium and many others who watch the ceremony on television.
The judge said that the kiss of Mr. Rubiales was the coerce of “a work that deserves to be denounced”, which achieved “unprecedented success in Spanish women’s football.”
There was no immediate response from Mrs. Hermoso. She said that the qiblah was not mutual.
Mrs. Hermoso He said shortly after the episode This “I did not agree at any time on the kiss he gave me.”
“I could not reply – it was a thousand seconds,” she witnessed later, adding that she knew immediately that the verb was not normal.
“My manager was kissing me,” she said. “This should not happen.”
Mr. Rubiales plans to appeal the ruling.
He denied committing anything wrong while meeting with Mrs. Hermoso. He spoke in the courtroom near Madrid earlier this month, saying: “You do not win the World Cup every day,” he added that he accepted other players in a festive moments.
The representatives of the prosecution also argued that Mr. Rubiales had pressured Mrs. Hermoso to drop her demands and play the accident.
Three other men, including Jorge Felda, the team coach in the World Cup, were also accused of coercion alongside Mr. Rubiales. All this charge was acquitted, as the court said that the prosecutors did not prove that Mrs. Hermoso is subject to any violence and intimidation that would ensure coercion.
The qiblah and the repercussions that followed this have pushed a moment of account in Spain, where progress in gender equality – women’s football in particular – has been made against the culture of Mixo.
The Minister of Equality, Spain, Anna Redondo, welcomed the judgment on Thursday.
“When there is no approval, there is an aggression, and this is what the judge is witnessing in this sentence,” Mrs. Redondo He said on social media.
However, the Progressive Women’s Union, a non -profit institution calling for gender equality in Spain, said it is “disappointed” from the ruling: Public Prosecutors sought to prison sentence for two and a half years for Mr. Rubiales.
Thursday’s ruling “enhances the lack of confidence in the judicial system and encourages the aggressors, non -profit” He said on social media.
In the wake of the direct accident, Mr. Rubiales made a lukewarm apology. He resigned as head of the National Football Organization, the Royal Football Association, after weeks of pressure and support for decline.
