Former Spanish football chief Luis Rubiales has been found guilty of a crime of sexual assault after forcibly kissing footballer Jenni Hermoso.
Rubiales, who kissed Hermoso without consent after her team won the Women’s World Cup in August 2023, was fined €10,800 by Spain’s National Court, banned from approaching Hermoso within 200 meters and from communicating with her for one year.
“This action of giving a woman a kiss on the mouth has a clear sexual connotation, and it is not the normal way of greeting people with whom one does not have an emotional relationship,” Judge José Manuel Clemente Fernández-Prieto said in his ruling on Thursday, El País reported.
However, Rubiales was acquitted of coercion, and the verdict gave him a much lighter sentence than what prosecutors had sought. They had asked for 30 months in prison and a much higher fine of €50,000.
Rubiales’ kiss-on-the-lips scandal sparked widespread criticism of sexism in football and led to his resignation as president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation.
Prosecutors said the events created a situation of anxiety and intense stress for Hermoso that continued for several months afterward. Rubiales has publicly maintained his innocence, insisting that the kiss was consensual.
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