The National Court of Spain delivered its verdict today in the trial of former national soccer federation (RFEF) president Luis Rubiales, charged with sexual assault over the unbidden, nonconsensual kiss he planted on the mouth of women's national team star Jenni Hermoso during the medal ceremony after Spain's victory in the 2023 World Cup. Judge José Manuel Fernández-Prieto found Rubiales guilty of the assault charge, but acquitted him of an accompanying charge of coercion concerning his subsequent efforts at pressuring Hermoso into supporting him and downplaying the incident.
Although the prosecution had asked for a prison sentence of one year for the sexual assault charge (and a further 18 months for the coercion), the court opted to impose a fine instead: €20 per day over 18 months, €10,800 in total. Rubiales is also forbidden from contacting Hermoso or coming within 200 meters of her for one year. Also acquitted of coercion were Rubiales's fellow defendants on that charge, former women's national team coach Jorge Vilda and former federation executives Albert Luque and Rubén Rivera.
At no point in this long, gross, terrible saga has Rubiales ever really owned up to the seriousness of what he did. His insistence during trial that the kiss was both consensual and normal—the type of thing he did all the time!—is only to be expected from a defendant testifying on his own behalf, but by that point he'd also refused accountability in both an unhinged screaming address to an RFEF emergency assembly and a grotesque, mewling sit-down interview with great big English turd-man Piers Morgan, portraying himself in both cases as the scandal's victim, the target of a "social assassination" by "fake feminists." Whether he feels further aggrieved by Thursday's ruling, or vindicated by the court's apparent leniency in sentencing, I think we can all agree that a mule should now kick his balls out through his ass.
