Luis Rubiales, who resigned as Spain’s top soccer official after he forcibly kissed a player, testified at his sexual assault trial on Tuesday that he did so as a sign of affection in “a situation of extraordinary joy.”
Mr. Rubiales has also been charged with coercion in connection with the episode, in which he pressed a kiss on the player, Jennifer Hermoso, on the field during the medal ceremony after Spain won the 2023 Women’s World Cup.
Mr. Rubiales denied doing anything wrong during the encounter with Ms. Hermoso. Speaking in a courtroom near Madrid, he said, “You don’t win a World Cup every day,” and he added that he had kissed other players in celebratory moments.
He also said that he had asked for permission before kissing Ms. Hermoso, describing it as a peck. “I asked her, ‘Can I give you a little kiss?’ and she said, ‘OK,’” he told a prosecutor. Ms. Hermoso said shortly after the episode that “at no time did I consent to the kiss that he gave me.”
“I couldn’t react — it was a thousandth of a second,” she later testified, adding that she had known immediately that the act was not normal.
“My boss was kissing me,” she said. “This should not happen.”
The kiss, and the ensuing fallout, became a moment of reckoning in the country as well as in the sport, pitting a culture of machismo against more recent progress in gender equality in Spanish soccer. Spain’s 1-0 victory over England culminated the team’s rapid ascent in women’s soccer, but the celebration laid bare the sexism with which female players contend.
