KISSGATE BID
Deluded Spain FA chief Luis Rubiales sends video of Jenni Hermoso to FIFA that he claims will clear his name
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SUSPENDED Spanish FA president Luis Rubiales was last night hoping a new video clip will clear him of his alleged sexual assault kiss with World Cup winner Jenni Hermoso.
Rubiales, who may face prosecution, reportedly sent the footage — in which Spain’s Hermoso laughs and jokes about the incident — to football governing body Fifa.
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A source said: “This video is gold dust for Rubiales. All along we have said for Jenni to tell the truth. There was no sexual assault.”
But one anti-domestic abuse campaigner said Rubiales was deluded if he thought it would exonerate him.
Teresa Parker, who developed a campaign in football for Women’s Aid, said it was wrong to pressure Hermoso to change her story.
She added: “If a woman says she didn’t consent, she didn’t consent, it is that straightforward.”
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The video, posted on X/Twitter by a reporter, shows smiling Hermoso, 33, swigging bubbly and showing a phone snap of the incident on the team bus after the final in Sydney.
She is heard asking team-mates whether they have seen it, before demonstrating how he came over to hug her.
Other players chant “beso” — Spanish for kiss.
Team-mates also compare it to retired Spain goalkeeper Iker Casillas’s snog with his TV reporter girlfriend Sara Carbonero after the men’s 2010 World Cup win.
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And when Rubiales boards the coach, he tells the women: “Stop, you’re making me blush.”
Three days later, CF Pachuca midfielder Hermoso, 33, denounced the kiss.
Colleagues have joined her in refusing to play for their country until Rubiales is axed.
Female footballers from Barcelona and Club América also held a “You are not alone” banner ahead of a friendly in Mexico City on Tuesday.
Spain’s government, meanwhile, has submitted paperwork to a sports tribunal which is examining two formal complaints against Rubiales.
The 46-year-old, who faces a Fifa investigation as well as a criminal sexual assault investigation, has claimed the kiss was consensual,
His mum, Angeles Bejar, 72, was taken to hospital last night on the third day of her hunger strike in support of her son at a church in Motril, near Malaga.
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