Jenni Hermoso opens up on the moment that “tarnished” her joy and experience of becoming a World Champion in 2023.
Jenni Hermoso has told a court that “one of the happiest moments” of her life was ruined. The then president of the Spanish Football Federation, Luis Rubiales, grabbed her and kissed her on the lips after Spain’s World Cup win in August 2023.
Due to claims that he attempted to coerce Hermoso into stating that the kiss, which occurred soon after Spain’s women’s team won in Sydney, was consensual, Rubiales, 47, is charged with both sexual assault and coercion. He has insisted that he asked for her consent before kissing her.
A month after the event, Rubiales resigned as president of the federation. If found guilty, he faces two and a half years in prison: 18 months for allegedly forcing Hermoso to downplay what happened and one year for sexual assault related to the forced kiss.
On the first day of the trial before the national court in San Fernando de Henares, close to Madrid, Hermoso testified that she had never given her agreement for Rubiales to kiss her and that he had not asked her for permission.
“I didn’t hear or understand any of it at the time,” the 34-year-old player told the court. “The next thing was that he put his hands over my ears and kissed me on the mouth.”
“I felt it was totally out of place and I then realised my boss was kissing me, and this shouldn’t happen in any social or workplace setting,” she said. “I felt disrespected. One of the happiest days of my life was tarnished and I think it’s very important for me to say that I never sought, much less expected, that this would happen. I think personally that it was a lack of respect.”
After the game, Hermoso, who plays for Tigres in Mexico, claimed she was taken off the bus to the airport and given a statement that the federation had prepared on her behalf and that was eventually released in her name.
“I skimmed it and I didn’t want to know exactly what it said,” she told the court. “I knew that I hadn’t written a word of the statement because nobody had asked me about it. It was a statement from me that I’d apparently written in my own words. It said that Luis Rubiales and I were good friends and that it had all happened in the excitement of the moment and that was all there was to it.”
The player said the statement made her feel “that I was participating in something I hadn’t done and in which I didn’t want to participate”. She added: “I’ll say it again: never, at any moment, did I look for any of this to happen.”