President of the Royal Spanish Football Federation Luis Rubiales announces he will be keeping as president throughout the conference, August 25, 2023..
RFEF | through Reuters
Spanish prosecutors opened an investigation of the nation’s soccer federation chief, officials explained Monday, in link to his kiss on the lips of a participant soon soon after successful the Planet Cup.
The nationwide prosecutors also invited the player, Spain’s staff captain Jennifer Hermoso, to arrive at out to them in the subsequent 15 times to report herself as a achievable victim of sexual aggression by federation president Luis Rubiales, officers claimed.
Girls and soccer fans throughout the globe ended up surprised when Rubiales kissed Hermoso flush on the lips for the duration of the medal ceremony next Spain’s thrilling, 1- victory more than England, in Sydney a 7 days in the past Sunday.
Hermoso has reported the kiss wasn’t consensual and that “I felt vulnerable and a target of an impulse-driven, sexist, out-of-area act without any consent on my portion.”
Meanwhile, also on Monday, Ángeles Béjar, Rubiales’s mom, went on a hunger strike to protest action from her son.
Béjar took refuge in the church of the Divina Pastora de Motril on the southern Spanish coastline and defended her son. The mom explained her hunger strike will operate “indefinitely, day and night,” Spanish news agency EFE reported.
“My son does not ought to have what they are accomplishing to him,” she reported, including that he’s the target of an “inhuman and bloody hunt.”
The sport’s worldwide governing entire body, FIFA, on Saturday suspended Rubiales from all soccer actions for 90 days.
Rubiales has been defiant in the confront of withering, globally criticism calling the kiss “spontaneous, mutual, euphoric and consensual.”
He’s refused to resign.
His cousin, Vanessa Ruiz Béjar, told reporters exterior the church that their household is suffering significantly from this controversy.
“That she would not want to depart the church, that his household, we, are suffering very a great deal for him, that we really don’t believe what’s taking place is just,” she claimed. “We want to be left in peace and that justice be done, and that this lady tells the fact.”
The kiss has marred what experienced been joyous nationwide celebration of La Roja’s initial time lifting the Women’s Environment Cup trophy.
Spain joined an elite club of nations to have received women’s soccer’s most coveted trophy, together with the United States, Germany, Japan and Norway.
But now the around the globe awareness on Spain has centered on its patriarchal culture and the growing assist for Hermoso.
The phrase “Contigo, Jenni,” or “with you, Jenni,” has been applied as a social media hashtag and handwritten on shirts, arms and even athletic tape of gamers throughout the world in modern times.
— Rima Abdelkader, Max Burman, Sandra Lilley , AFP and The Associated Press contributed.