Jorge Vilda denies coercion against Jenni Hermoso but admits that he spoke to his brother about Rubiales’ kiss | Sports

In just 52 days, coach Jorge Vilda has gone from making the procession on August 20 to collect the women’s World Cup winner’s medal to, this Tuesday, making the procession to enter the National Court to testify as a defendant in the Rubiales case. The coach, missing since he offered an interview after his dismissal as coach, arrived at the building at 9:45 a.m., 15 minutes before the time set by magistrate Francisco De Jorge to question him about the kiss and the alleged coercion of Jennifer Hermoso. . Calm, and even smiling at some point, Vilda has remained silent before the press when entering the court; and later, according to legal sources, she has denied the pressure on the player before the instructor, although she has admitted that she spoke with Hermoso’s brother after the scandal broke out. According to what she said, her only objective was to help the soccer player—whom she saw badly—to get rid of the “sufflé.”

Vilda has arrived as a defendant to this interrogation, which at some point has raised tension (especially during the Prosecutor’s questions to the coach). The judge finally decided to call him under investigation after delving into the alleged maneuvers concocted within the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) to appease the controversy over the kiss that the president of the entity, Luis Rubiales, gave to Hermoso during the celebration of the World. The coach’s name has been on the table from the beginning. The public ministry asked Rubiales about him. And the forward’s brother, Rafael Hermoso, referred to it during his testimony as a witness. His words, which confirmed the story of the complaint, were key.

In her statement before the Prosecutor’s Office, the player had pointed out Vilda for the pressure on her surroundings, allegedly carried out by Rubiales’ subordinates. This is how the soccer player described one of the scenes under suspicion, which occurred on the plane that brought the team to Spain after winning the World Cup: “They tell me that (Vilda) has been circling the plane twice to probably talk to my family. And she (went) to the third, because my brother was asleep. They say he passed by once, passed another, until he saw him awake and started talking to my brother. My colleague Misa (Rodríguez) already told me there that Jorge was talking to my family,” he assured the lieutenant prosecutor of the National Court, Marta Durántez, according to the testimony revealed by Mediaset.

“They let my brother know that if I helped him, I would do well,” added the Mexican Pachuca player: “They told my family that I had been very important, that I deserved it and that they would try to convince me to helped to downplay the importance of the act. Was my family used to convince me? Clear. There were 100 or 200 relatives there, I don’t know why he just stopped with mine,” Hermoso highlighted during his statement before the public ministry, which occurred on September 5.

This Tuesday, as detailed by legal sources present at the interrogation, Vilda assured that she did not see the kiss to the player at the medal ceremony, but that she perceived that the atmosphere became “strange” after the incident. She said that the atmosphere in the stadium was very different from what was later seen on the plane back to Spain. Therefore, according to his version, to try to reduce that negative “sufflé” and because of the affection he had for the affected woman, he wanted to approach Hermoso’s brother on the way to try to help, and he then indicated to him that perhaps it was positive. to go out in public to give their version. In that sense, according to these sources, the coach has said that he did not address the athlete directly so as not to overwhelm her and, as he has stressed, at no time did he follow Rubiales’ instructions. The coach has stressed that he was not from the circle of trust of the top manager of the RFEF, although he was in a group in which the issue was addressed.

In his statement at the National Court, Luis Rubiales denied coercion of the player, although he admitted that he himself and Vilda tried to convince Hermoso to publicly support the actions of the then president of the RFEF. “I didn’t even know that the brother was coming on the plane. Vilda, who was sitting behind me, told me that she had come from talking to her brother, that he was a reasonable guy, and that she was going to talk to her to see if… Well, with the mess we wanted to cut it off and not create a problem (for) something that was an anecdote,” said the former director.

After questioning Vilda, the judge did the same with Rubén Rivera, responsible for marketing of the Federation. De Jorge had initially granted Rivera the status of witness, but he finally decided to charge him after the statements of his brother and a friend of Hermoso. This senior official of the RFEF is placed on a trip to Ibiza, where the soccer players celebrated the title after winning in Sydney, to supposedly put pressure on the athlete. Albert Luque, director of the (men’s) national team, who is accused and will testify on October 16, according to the calendar set by the investigating magistrate, allegedly joined this maneuver.

Legal sources have confirmed that Rivera delivered several messages last Friday that he himself exchanged with several players. And this Tuesday, as a justification for his actions, the person in charge of marketing He has alleged that he was not following orders from Rubiales and that he was a mere worker for the Federation: a kind of arranger who had organized the trip to Ibiza and who, therefore, was present on the island. He was in charge, as he has repeated, of carrying out procedures such as getting tickets to clubs. In addition, he added that he passed some calls to Hermoso and that Luque was also there because he was on vacation.

Luque, next scheduled interrogation

With this Tuesday’s appointment, Judge De Jorge has continued with the round of interrogations that had begun after Luis Rubiales’ statement on September 15, when he denied the two crimes attributed to him: sexual assault, not for the kiss. spoiled; and coercion, due to the alleged pressure on the player and those around her to publicly ratify the manager’s version after the scandal broke out. In this phase, among other milestones, three Hermoso teammates (Alexia Putellas, Irene Paredes and Misa Rodríguez) supported the version of the Pachuca forward on October 2.

After the interrogation of Luque on October 16, the magistrate plans to continue in November with the witness statements of Luis de la Fuente, coach of the men’s soccer team; the dismissed communication director of the RFEF, Pablo García-Cuervo, and his second, Enrique Yunta; the psychologist of the women’s team, Javier López Vallejo; the former Rubiales’ cabinet director, José María Timón; and the person responsible for compliance (good practices) of the federation, Javier Pujol.

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