Rubiales ‘completely positive’ Hermoso consented to kiss at World Cup, trial hears – INA NEWS

Former Spanish soccer federation chief Luis Rubiales has advised a courtroom that participant Jenni Hermoso had given her consent for him to kiss her within the aftermath of Spain’s Girls’s World Cup victory in 2023.

“I’m completely positive that she gave me her permission,” Rubiales advised Spain’s Nationwide Court docket on Tuesday in Madrid the place he’s standing trial. “In that second it was one thing utterly spontaneous.”

Rubiales, 47, is accused of sexual assault for kissing Hermoso on the mouth after which trying to coerce her – with the assistance of three different former soccer federation officers – into publicly saying the kiss on the World Cup awards ceremony in Australia had been consensual.

“She squeezed me very tightly underneath my armpits, she lifted me, and after I got here down I requested her if I may give you a kiss, and she or he mentioned ‘OK’, that’s what occurred,” he mentioned.

“What occurred had no significance neither for me nor for her,” Rubiales added throughout his extremely anticipated testimony, describing the kiss as “an act of affection”.

Prosecutors are searching for two and a half years in jail in opposition to Rubiales for sexual assault for the pressured kiss and allegedly coercing Hermoso to downplay the incident. Rubiales denies the cost of coercion levelled in opposition to him, former girls’s group supervisor Jorge Vilda and two ex-federation officers.

Hermoso advised the trial’s opening day on February 3 that she felt “disrespected” by a non-consensual kiss after she had simply helped Spain win the World Cup.