The prosecution in the Luis Rubiales trial “constructed a story” to portray the Spanish football federation as being “like a mafia organisation” in order to bring coercion charges against the four defendants, argued one of their counsel in the court’s final session on Friday.
Rubiales, the former head of the Spanish football federation (RFEF), is on trial for alleged sexual assault and coercion having kissed the Spain player Jenni Hermoso as the winners’ medals were being presented after the World Cup final victory over England in Sydney in August 2023.
The prosecution alleged that Rubiales, 47, and three other RFEF employees — Ruben Rivera, the former marketing director, Jorge Vilda, the former women’s team coach, and the former men’s team sporting director Albert Luque — coerced Hermoso into publicly supporting Rubiales’ version that the kiss had been consensual. All four defendants deny all the charges.
“The kiss was not enough for them, it was so small and so trivial, it was not enough for what the state wanted to do against the federation,” Rivera’s counsel Joaquin Jimenez said at the Audiencia Nacional in San Fernando de Henares near Madrid, on the final day of the two-week trial.
“So they said we can construct this story, we’ll dress up the doll. It’s an interesting one, I’d buy the novel. They describe the RFEF like a mafia organisation, all organised to coerce Jennifer Hermoso.”
Rivera was charged with coercion due to his role in trying to get Hermoso to take part in an internal federation enquiry which the prosecution says Rubiales directed to absolve himself of any consequences for the kiss and his other behaviour after the final in Sydney.
Hermoso said in her testimony last week that she did not want to take part in this inquiry, but Rivera kept insisting she speak to the federation’s integrity director Miguel Garcia Caba, who was conducting it. Hermoso’s Spain team-mate Laia Codina said during the trial that Rivera kept up the pressure “until Jenni got overwhelmed and started crying”.
“Ruben Rivera passed someone a phone, charged someone’s phone, and asked in a well-mannered way for Hermoso to speak with someone,” Rivera’s counsel Jimenez said during his final statement. “For this to be worth 18 months in prison, and a €50,000 fine, is normal? These charges should never have even come to trial.”
Vilda’s counsel Luis Jordana used his final statement to question evidence given last week by Hermoso’s brother Rafael, who said that the former Spain women’s team coach told him during the flight back from Sydney that his sister not backing up Rubiales’ version of events after the final would bring “personal and professional consequences”.
Jordana said in court that Vilda had not been threatening Hermoso or her brother, but had been trying to explain that the media storm around the kiss was going to be difficult for the player to deal with.
“Vilda explained here in court that the personal and physical consequences (he spoke of to Rafael Hermoso) were the effects of the media pressure on the player,” Jordana argued. “His primary concern was how that media pressure would affect her performance and her personal life.”
Hermoso testified on day one of the trial that she had been hurt by how Vilda had tried to protect Rubiales after the kiss, instead of being concerned with her wellbeing, especially given their past close relationship.
“Jennifer Hermoso said that she felt bad as Vilda did nothing to protect her, but just feeling bad about something does not mean coercion,” Jordana said on Friday. “The jurisprudence demands that for a guilty verdict, there must be clear evidence of intimidation or violence.”
Luque said during his appearance in court this week that messages he had sent to Hermoso during that week in Ibiza, in which he said he’d be happy to see her left all alone, were unfortunate and that he now regretted them.
The former Newcastle player’s counsel Jorge Navarro repeated the description of “unfortunate” during his closing statement, while mentioning Spain’s freedom of expression laws as he argued his client was not guilty of any crime.
“When Luque went to try and mediate between two of his friends (Rubiales and Hermoso), it’s coercion?” Navarro said. “And they are asking for a year and a half in prison?”
Hermoso’s friend Ana Ecube testified last week that Luque had offered her and Hermoso work opportunities if they helped out Rubiales, with Ecube saying in court, “I said no, it was like selling my soul to the devil.”
“The victim who did not want to do a deal with the devil, then initiated a conversation on the 24th with Luque, saying she wanted to meet with him later in Madrid,” Navarro said. “Who is Miss Ecube, the one from the trial or from those messages?”
All three defence counsel criticised the prosecution case during their closing arguments, each saying the charge of coercion did not fit the evidence presented during the trial.
“The charges have not stood out for their legal rigour,” Luque’s counsel Navarro said. “They will be studied in universities in future to see how things should not be done.”
Rubiales and his three co-accused all declined their right to address the court at the end of the trial, which involved nine days of testimony over two weeks.
“It seems untrue, but we’re now finished,” joked judge Jose Manuel Clemente Fernandez-Prieto as he closed the proceedings.
The prosecutors are asking for a two-and-a-half-year sentence for Rubiales (one year for the alleged sexual assault and 18 months for the alleged coercion) and 18 months for the three co-accused of coercion. They are requesting €50,000 ($51,800) in damages from Rubiales, another €50,000 ($51,800) to be jointly paid by Rubiales, Vilda, Luque and Rivera, and for Rubiales to be banned from working as a sports official.
Fernandez-Prieto will now consider his verdict, which may take a week or more. Both sides will then have the right to appeal that verdict.
(Top photo: Eduardo Parra/Europa Press via Getty Images)
