Spain upholds fine against Rubiales for Hermoso forced kiss

MADRID (AFP) —A Spanish court on Wednesday confirmed the 10,800-euro ($12,600) fine disgraced former soccer federation chief Luis Rubiales received for forcibly kissing Jenni Hermoso, a sentence feminist groups condemned as too lenient.

The Audiencia Nacional said in a statement that it rejected the appeals of Rubiales’s defense team and prosecutors who had sought a prison term over the kiss at the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia.

After a keenly awaited trial that gripped Spain, the court in February found Rubiales guilty of sexual assault for the kiss but cleared him of a separate accusation of coercion for allegedly forcing Hermoso to downplay the incident.

Rubiales maintained the kiss was a consensual “peck” between friends celebrating during the medal ceremony after star forward Hermoso had just helped Spain beat England in the final in Sydney, denying any coercion.

Prosecutors had sought two-and-a-half years in jail for Rubiales, one year for sexual assault and 18 months for the alleged coercion.

The court also confirmed on Wednesday that Rubiales, former women’s national team manager Jorge Vilda and two former senior federation officials, Albert Luque and Ruben Rivera, were cleared of the coercion charge.

A separate request by the prosecutors to rerun the trial, notably due to doubts over the judge’s impartiality, was dismissed.

The court also maintained a ban on Rubiales from going within a 200-meter radius of Hermoso and from communicating with her for one year.

The kiss sparked a global uproar that forced Rubiales to relinquish his post, saw him banned from all soccer-related activity for three years and plunged the federation into a prolonged period of turmoil.

The affair also made Hermoso, the all-time top scorer for the national women’s team, an icon of the fight against sexism and macho culture in sport.

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By Agence France-Presse