Luis Rubiales, the previous head of Spain’s soccer federation, was convicted on Thursday of sexual assault for forcibly kissing a member of the ladies’s nationwide group on the lips after the group gained the 2023 Ladies’s World Cup.
Mr. Rubiales’s kiss of the participant, Jennifer Hermoso, set off a nationwide scandal, deepened debates about longstanding sexism in Spanish soccer and have become a watershed second in Spain’s #MeToo motion.
A Spanish court docket on Thursday cleared Mr. Rubiales of a separate cost of coercion. For the sexual assault conviction, it fined Mr. Rubiales 10,800 euros, about $11,270.
In delivering the ruling, Decide José Gonzales mentioned {that a} kiss “just isn’t the traditional method of greeting individuals with whom one doesn’t have an emotional relationship.”
Mr. Rubiales was additionally ordered to not go inside 200 meters, or about 650 ft, of Ms. Hermoso for one 12 months. The court docket mentioned he can’t contact Ms. Hermoso and should pay her 3,000 euros (about $3,130) for “ethical harm prompted to her.”
Decide Gonzales mentioned the sum was proportionate for the forcible kiss, particularly given the “time and place” — in full view of hundreds of spectators within the stadium and lots of others watching the ceremony on tv.
There was no quick response from Ms. Hermoso. She had mentioned that the kiss was not consensual, which Mr. Rubiales disputed. Talking in a courtroom close to Madrid earlier this month, he mentioned, “You don’t win a World Cup on daily basis,” and he added that he had kissed different gamers in celebratory moments.
Prosecutors mentioned the previous soccer boss had pressured Ms. Hermoso to drop her declare and play down the incident.
