Jenni Hermoso, to the prosecutor: “I didn’t expect it, I didn’t look for that moment or do anything to make it happen” | Soccer | Sports

The soccer player of the Spanish team Jenni Hermoso, world champion in Australia and New Zealand, whom the former president of the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) gave a kiss in full celebrations for winning the title, testified before the prosecutor’s office last September 5 that said kiss was not consensual. “I didn’t feel respected,” she said. And she detailed everything that happened from that moment until the team’s arrival in Spain, where the pressure from the then head of Spanish football allegedly occurred. The statement was published this Monday exclusively by the program Code 10, from Telecinco.

In this statement, Hermoso explains how Rubiales went to look for her in the locker room, still in Sydney; also how he approached her in Doha, where the team stopped before arriving in Madrid from Australia to ask her to go out with him in an explanatory video. In addition, there was also pressure from the environment and workers of the federation, who tried to convince her – always in accordance with the footballer’s version – on several occasions to come out in defense of the president, who was ultimately suspended by FIFA and who Three weeks later he submitted his resignation.

“The first thing I said to him when I hugged him was ‘what we’ve got into’. He jumps on me, I stand firm to support us. When he came down he told me that ‘we had won this World Cup thanks to me’. The next thing I remember is his hands on my head and I don’t remember hearing anything else,” explains Hermoso in his statement at the headquarters of the State Attorney General’s Office. And he adds: “At no time was he consented. I felt disrespected, he did not respect me either as a player or as a person. I was experiencing something historic and I thought that something like this was going to have consequences. “I didn’t do anything to find myself in that situation.”

The player assumes the initial confusion. And she excuses herself before the prosecutor: “I didn’t expect it, I didn’t expect that on that stage… It was the medal ceremony for a World Cup. “A lot of emotion, a lot of joy, but I didn’t look for that moment or do anything for this act to take place.” After moments of celebration, euphoria and comments of all kinds, Hermoso begins to come to terms with what happened. Also Rubiales. RFEF personnel, such as football director Ana Álvarez, talk to her before leaving the stadium; The press officer Patricia Pérez also approaches her: they make her get off the bus and Pérez shows her a previously drafted statement so that she could give her approval.

At the stadium and at the airport

“He shows me a writing, that I did not say a word of that writing. And I said, ‘But why do I have to do this?’ We have to do something, we have to stop this. And I told him: ‘Well, do what you want.’ But I did not say or write a word of that writing. Once again I was feeling like I was obligated to do something,” says Hermoso. That was the statement that the RFEF sent to all the media to defend that there was no type of conflict between the two of them, that the kiss was mutual, an act of affection in a moment of euphoria. Something that the athlete denies. That she continued to be pressured, both by her and her family.

The still president Rubiales looked for her once again, at the airport. To convince her to help him: “I am a very good person and you are also a very good person, and if you help a good person…”, he told her, according to Hermoso’s story, who adds: “I was getting very nervous, I didn’t have to appear in any video. He told me: ‘You have to help me, and do it for my two daughters who are there crying on the plane.’ He was asking me to help him solve an act that he caused. “I didn’t feel like I had to help anyone.”

Hermoso explains that since that last refusal no one has approached her or looked at her. But the pressures came in other ways. The former coach Jorge Vilda spoke with Jenni’s brother, her cousin and her boyfriend: “They let my brother know that if I helped him, I would do well.” Vilda, like Albert Luque, director of the (men’s) national team, are accused of coercing Hermoso.

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