Luis Rubiales’ lawyer said in court on Thursday that Jenni Hermoso “not liking” the kiss from the former Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) president “does not mean she did not give consent” and does not “make it a crime”.
Olga Tubau made the argument during her closing statement in Rubiales’ trial for sexual assault and coercion after he kissed Spain player Hermoso during the medal presentation following the Women’s World Cup final win against England in Sydney in August 2023.
The prosecution alleges that Rubiales, 47, and three other RFEF employees — Jorge Vilda, the former Newcastle United forward and ex-Spain sporting director Albert Luque, and former marketing director Ruben Rivera — coerced Hermoso into publicly supporting Rubiales’ version that the kiss had been consensual. All four deny all charges.
Hermoso has consistently maintained she did not consent to the kiss in the months and years since the incident and did so again in court last week, testifying that Rubiales “didn’t ask me if he could kiss me or not” and that “If he had asked me the question, I would not have agreed”.
The court has also heard Hermoso say “I did not like it” twice immediately after the kiss — in an Instagram Live video from the dressing room and in an interview with the radio station COPE after the final.
During his testimony on Tuesday, Rubiales said he was “completely sure” he had asked Hermoso if he could kiss her, and she had replied “OK”.
“‘I did not like it’ is not incompatible with having given consent,” Tubau said during Thursday’s session at the Audiencia Nacional, Spain’s national high court in San Fernando de Henares near Madrid.
“She could have given consent, and then not liked the physical contact, for the repercussion the kiss immediately had in the Spanish and global media. Not liking it does not mean she did not give consent, or make it a crime.”
A lipreader called by the defence also testified in court that TV images from just before the kiss show Rubiales asking “Can I give you a little kiss?”.
Tubau argued in court on Thursday that the player saying “Well, OK” (“Pues vale” in Spanish) in the Instagram Live video from the dressing room was her answer to this question from Rubiales on the podium.
“In the Instagram video, you can see Miss Hermoso full of joy, drinking champagne,” Tubau said. “Someone asks her ‘He kissed you’, and she replies ‘I didn’t like it’. Then someone asks ‘What did you say?’ and her response is ‘Well, OK’.”
Tubau argued that Hermoso calling the kiss an “anecdote” in the COPE interview was further evidence no crime had been committed.
“It’s true that she says, ‘I did not like it’,” said Rubiales’ counsel. “But she also says it was the moment, the emotion, and not to make anything more of it. She does not mention any sexual assault, which the media were already talking about, and government ministers tweeting about.
“She says it was nothing important. While saying goodbye (in the COPE interview), the journalist says ‘A kiss on the cheek?’, and she replies ‘Wherever you want’. She is joking. Does a victim of sexual assault joke about it?”
Tubau argued that Hermoso only started to view the kiss as sexual assault afterwards, when others including her team-mates and those who had been watching on TV categorised it that way.
“Someone who has received an act of sexual assault is indignant and furious, they do not need the validation of third parties to know what has happened,” she argued.
“The kiss was not experienced or interpreted as sexual assault by Hermoso or her closest circle. Hermoso was destroyed by the fact that people were talking about the kiss, instead of talking about being world champions. It is unfortunate for her, terrible. This consequence of the kiss is not what Rubiales wanted either. But that does not mean it was sexual assault. That has not been proven.”
During her closing statement, which lasted almost an hour and a half, Tubau pointed to how Rubiales had told the court he had “slipped up” and “made a mistake” in his behaviour after the final in Sydney. His counsel argued that the judge should acquit him of all the charges as “we cannot confuse a sin and a crime”.
Tubau also addressed the charges of coercion that the four co-defendants face. Rubiales’ lawyer said that, under the relevant Spanish law, there must be proven physical or moral violence or intimidation.
“Insisting or being annoying is not coercion,” Tubau said, pointing to a moment outside the players’ dressing room in Sydney, where the prosecution allege Rubiales was trying to convince Hermoso to publicly admit she had consented to the kiss.
Last week, the prosecution called Spain women’s team director of communications Patricia Perez to give evidence. She said she was pressured to agree with Rubiales’ version of the kiss as part of an internal investigation that he controlled, with the objective of absolving him of any wrongdoing.
“The prosecution spoke about (Rubiales) as the head of a criminal organisation, like a mafia,” Tubau said. “Patricia Perez is a perfect witness to show the judge a climate created by Rubiales in his office of coercion and pressure. But Perez said that in the end what she put on paper was what she wanted. So if they were trying to pressure her, it was not so effective.”
During his final statement, Hermoso’s counsel Angel Chavarria spoke of the “six seconds which completely changed the life of Jennifer Hermoso”.
“These acts have marked the victim,” he said. “They have signalled her, stigmatised her, not just in Spain, but globally. She is not known as Jenni the world champion, but as Jenni of the kiss. It has caused her psychological damage, she is still undergoing treatment.”
Chavarria also contested the evidence given in court by the lip reader David Murillo, called by Rubiales’s defence on Tuesday, from the Association of Deaf People in Granada (ASOGRA).
Hermoso’s counsel said in his closing statement that Murillo had not even been able to accurately read the lips of the investigating judge and needed an interpreter to tell him what he was being asked via sign language. Speaking to the prosecutor on Tuesday through an interpreter, Murillo said he had no official qualifications but had taken part in two previous court cases in Granada having been asked by police, although he could not give any details about these.
Rubiales’ lawyer Tubau later defended Murillo’s competency and attacked what she said were efforts by the prosecution to discredit an important piece of defence evidence.
Chavarria repeatedly said “a crime does not happen by chance” as he argued the testimonies and evidence from the trial showed how Rubiales and his co-defendants had been aware of what he had done from the start.
Also giving a closing statement on Thursday was Maria Jose Lopez, representing Spain’s players union AFE, who entered the case on Hermoso’s side.
Lopez told the court about how Rubiales had engaged all of the RFEF’s mechanisms against Hermoso, without ever asking her how she felt about what had happened, and doing so “with the purpose of saving himself.”
On Friday, the trial continues with the court set to hear closing statements from the lawyers representing each of Rubiales’ three co-defendants.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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