Rubialies discovered responsible of sexually assaulting footballer Jenni Hermoso by forcibly kissing her and ordered to pay positive.
A Spanish court docket has discovered former soccer chief Luis Rubiales responsible of sexual assault for kissing soccer participant Jenni Hermoso with out her consent after the 2023 Ladies’s World Cup Closing.
Rubiales, who was acquitted of coercion, was given a positive of 10,000 euros ($10,455) on Thursday by the Audiencia Nacional court docket. He was ordered to not go inside a 200-metre (660-foot) radius of Hermoso and banned from speaking along with her for one yr.
The incident forged a pall over Spain’s victory within the 2023 Ladies’s World Cup and set off a debate about sexism confronted by feminine athletes. The 47-year-old Rubiales resigned in September 2023 amid widespread outrage.
Whereas Hermoso has said that the kiss was not consensual and told the court that she felt “disrespected” by the act, Rubiales has maintained that it was. He instructed the court docket on Tuesday that he remained “completely certain” that the kiss was consensual.
Prosecutors had sought jail time for Rubiales, composed of 1 yr for assault and 18 months for coercion, alleging that Rubiales and a number of other outstanding Spanish soccer officers had tried to coerce Hermoso into saying that the kiss was consensual and downplay the incident.
The court docket declined to condemn Rubiales to jail time and acquitted him and the three co-defendants of coercion.
Decide Jose Manuel Fernandez-Prieto stated that he believed Hermono’s testimony that she had not consented to the kiss. He dominated that the sexual assault, “whereas at all times reproachable” was of minor depth as there was no violence or intimidation.
“The Decide understands that, in view of the magnitude of the assault, a kiss, that it’s a sporadic act of the accused, and that he doesn’t require particular rehabilitation for the crime, the pecuniary penalty should be chosen, which is much less severe than the custodial sentence,” the decision stated.
The 34-year-old Hermoso, the all-time prime scorer for the Spanish girls’s group, instructed the court docket earlier this month that the unsolicited kiss and the commotion that adopted had “stained one of many happiest days of my life”, whereas her teammates testified that the incident left her exhausted, crying and overwhelmed.
“As a lady, I felt disrespected,” Hermoso stated on the trial.
“For me, it is extremely necessary to say that at no level did I search that act, not to mention count on it.”
