MADRID
\nA Spanish court on Thursday convicted former football chief Luis Rubiales of sexual assault over the forced kiss he gave star forward Jenni Hermoso and fined him 10,800 euros ($11,300).
\nBut the court acquitted him and the three other accused of the charge of coercion in the case.
\nProsecutors had sought a prison term of two-and-a-half years for Rubiales \u2014 one year for sexual assault and 18 months for coercion \u2014 for having allegedly pressured the player to downplay the incident.
\nRubiales was accused of sexual assault for kissing Hermoso in 2023 following Spain\u2019s triumph in the women\u2019s World Cup in Australia, as well as coercion for allegedly trying to convince her to downplay the incident afterwards.
\nThe global outcry over the kiss forced Rubiales to resign in disgrace and thrust the spotlight on the prevalence of macho culture and sexism in sport.
\nHermoso, 34, said on the opening day of the trial on February 3 she felt \u201cdisrespected\u201d after a non-consensual kiss that \u201cshould not happen in any social or work setting\u201d. But Rubiales, 47, told the court on Tuesday he was \u201ctotally sure\u201d Hermoso consented to the kiss as she went up to receive her winner\u2019s medal, which was broadcast live around the world, and denied putting pressure on her after the incident.
\nHe conceded he \u201cmade a mistake\u201d on the podium, saying he should have \u201cbeen in a more institutional role\u201d, but denied any offence had been committed.
\nRubiales\u2019 stance on the stand contrasted with the defiance he displayed when the scandal broke.
\nDuring an emergency federation meeting in August 2023, he minimised the importance of the kiss and defied calls for his resignation, railing against \u201cfalse feminism\u201d.
\nRubiales resigned in September that year after FIFA suspended him and Spanish prosecutors opened an investigation into alleged sexual assault. He had been federation chief since 2018.
\nHermoso, the all-time top scorer for the Spain women\u2019s team who now plays for Mexican club Tigres, was not called up to the national squad immediately after the World Cup.
\nBut new coach Montse Tome said she wanted to protect the player and denied omitting her from the squad was a \u201cpunishment\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MADRID A Spanish court on Thursday convicted former football chief Luis Rubiales of sexual assault over the forced kiss he gave star forward Jenni Hermoso and fined him 10,800 euros ($11,300). But the court acquitted him and the three other accused of the charge of coercion in the case. Prosecutors had sought a prison term …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":77369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77385"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77398,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77385\/revisions\/77398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}