Spanish prosecutors have announced they are seeking a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence for the country’s former FA chief Luis Rubiales over the last Women’s World Cup ‘kiss gate’ scandal.
The prosecutors also want him to pay Jenni Hermoso €100,000 (£85,000) in compensation if he is convicted at trial.
They laid out their pre-trial demands in a six-page indictment made public on Wednesday.
They said they were seeking a one-year jail term for a sexual assault charge and a separate one-year six-month prison sentence for coercion linked to his alleged attempts to get Jenni to speak out in his defence over the ‘unwanted’ kiss he gave the Women’s World Cup winner last summer.
Madrid-based judge Francisco de Jorge paved the way for Rubiales to be tried earlier this year after recommending he be put in the dock.
He said his long-running probe had uncovered ‘solid evidence’ pointing to the potential illegality of the kiss.
Mr De Jorge, who has already quizzed the former football boss and his alleged victim separately in closed sessions at Spain’s centralised Audiencia Nacional court, said in a five-page ruling made public in January: ‘The investigation has revealed the existence of solid evidence the kiss Luis Manuel Rubiales Bejar gave the player Jennifer Hermoso was not consensual and was a unilateral and surprise initiative on his part.
‘Whether there was no any erotic intention or it was a result of the state of euphoria and excitement experienced as a consequence of the extraordinary sporting triumph preceding it is something that should be valued in a public trial.’
He said he had concluded Hermoso had been left ‘bewildered and surprised’ by the ‘unexpected’ kiss and ‘didn’t have time to react’ after Rubiales grabbed her by the head with both hands and locked lips with her at the awards ceremony in front of millions of TV viewers watching live last August.
He accused Rubiales of pressuring Jenni to publicly support him on the plane back from Sydney in Australia where the Spain team won last August’s final against the England women’s team before asking Vilda to speak to her brother and try to convince her to record a video saying the kiss was consensual.
He went on to detail how his investigation had discovered evidence pointing to Vilda subsequently telling the footballer’s sibling her failure to assist with the video would have ‘negative consequences’ for her.
Mr De Jorge also outlined how Ruben Rivera asked Jenni again to participate in a video ‘exonerating’ Rubiales when they got back to Spain as part of repeated attempts to get her to speak out about the kiss in a way that was beneficial to the divorced father-of-three.
And he accused Albert Luque of turning up unannounced at a hotel Jennifer was in to convince her to participate in the video despite her rejecting Rivera’s requests to talk to him about backing Rubiales publicly.
He concluded in his bombshell ruling: ‘The pressure the player was submitted to created in Jennifer Hermoso a situation of anxiety and intense stress.’
Public prosecutors said on Tuesday they were seeking prison sentences of one year and six months for Vilda, Luque and Rivera if convicted of coercion.
Hermoso, 33, who plays her club football now for Mexican side Tigres, sparked the Audiencia Nacional investigation by filing a complaint against 46-year-old Rubiales last September.
She accused him of kissing her without consent after the Women’s World Cup final finished and described it as a sexist act which left her feeling vulnerable.
Rubiales has insisted it was consensual and described it as a peck.
Mr De Jorge banned him from going within 200 metres of Hermoso or making any contact with her as part of a restraining order after questioning him in court a week after the player lodged her complaint.
