MADRID--Spain's High Court has found former soccer federation head Luis Rubiales guilty of sexual assault for kissing player Jenni Hermoso without her consent and fined him over 10,000 euros ($10,434) in a case which caused a nationwide furore.
It acquitted him of a charge of coercion, the court said on Thursday in a ruling seen by Reuters. Rubiales told Reuters he would appeal, saying: "I am going to keep fighting."
Prosecutors had sought a prison sentence for Rubiales, 47, over the incident that provoked a heated debate in Spain about sexism in women's football and wider Spanish society and gave momentum to a "Me Too" movement in the country.
The court said it had also acquitted Rubiales' three co-defendants who were accused of attempting to coerce Hermoso into saying the kiss, at the 2023 World Cup awards ceremony in Sydney, was consensual. The ensuing scandal overshadowed Spain's victory in the tournament.
Rubiales, who is the target of a separate corruption investigation into commissions paid over a lucrative deal to stage the Spanish Super Cup competition in Saudi Arabia, has maintained throughout this month's trial that Hermoso had consented to be kissed amid the celebrations.But Judge Jose Manuel Fernandez-Prieto said he believed Hermoso's testimony that she had not.
He found Rubiales guilty of sexual assault. But he said that while this was "always reproachable", this instance was of minor intensity as there was no violence or intimidation.As it involved a kiss rather than a more serious action, Rubiales should be spared time in prison, Fernandez-Prieto said.
The ruling also banned Rubiales from going within a 200-m (218 yards) radius of Hermoso and from communicating with her for one year. He will also have to pay Hermoso 3,000 euros as compensation. The fine was set at 20 euros a day over an 18-month period.Rubiales' gross annual salary at the RFEF federation was 675,762 euros.
