President of the Royal Spanish Football Federation Luis Rubiales announces he will be staying as president during the meeting, August 25, 2023..
RFEF | via Reuters
Spanish prosecutors opened an investigation of the nation’s soccer federation chief, officials said Monday, in connection to his kiss on the lips of a player shortly after winning the World Cup.
The national prosecutors also invited the player, Spain’s team captain Jennifer Hermoso, to reach out to them in the next 15 days to report herself as a possible victim of sexual aggression by federation president Luis Rubiales, officials said.
Women and soccer fans across the globe were stunned when Rubiales kissed Hermoso flush on the lips during the medal ceremony following Spain’s thrilling, 1-0 victory over England, in Sydney a week ago Sunday.
Hermoso has said the kiss wasn’t consensual and that “I felt vulnerable and a victim of an impulse-driven, sexist, out-of-place act without any consent on my part.”
Meanwhile, also on Monday, Ángeles Béjar, Rubiales’s mother, went on a hunger strike to protest action against her son.
Béjar took refuge in the church of the Divina Pastora de Motril on the southern Spanish coast and defended her son. The mother said her hunger strike will run “indefinitely, day and night,” Spanish news agency EFE reported.
“My son does not deserve what they are doing to him,” she said, adding that he’s the target of an “inhuman and bloody hunt.”
The sport’s international governing body, FIFA, on Saturday suspended Rubiales from all soccer activities for 90 days.
More from NBC News:
Rubiales has been defiant in the face of withering, worldwide criticism calling the kiss “spontaneous, mutual, euphoric and consensual.” He’s refused to resign.
His cousin, Vanessa Ruiz Béjar, told reporters outside the church that their family is suffering greatly from this controversy.
“We want justice to be done,” she said.
The kiss has marred what had been joyous national celebration of La Roja’s first time lifting the Women’s World Cup trophy. Spain joined an elite club of nations to have won women’s soccer’s most coveted trophy, alongside the United States, Germany, Japan and Norway.
— This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
— Rima Abdelkader, Max Burman, AFP and The Associated Press contributed.
Source:CNBC
