Francisco de Jorge, investigating judge of the Rubiales case, has resolved this Friday the last problem he had left. Montse Tomé, current coach of the Spanish women’s soccer team, has come to testify as a witness before the judge of the National Court, following the defense of her predecessor, the accused Jorge Vilda, requested her appearance. According to legal sources, Tomé has explained that he did not include the player Jennifer Hermoso in his first call for sporting reasons and to “protect” her from the media pressure that existed following the kiss on the mouth given to her by the former president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation. (RFEF) Luis Rubiales, following winning the World Cup. As she added, Vilda did not call her to leave Hermoso off the list, although the coach has said that he did urge her to participate in the organization’s assembly on August 25, even though she did not want to go. At that event, attendees supported and applauded the main defendant in this procedure, who was supposedly going to present his resignation that day. Instead, he clung to the position. Until he was suspended (and subsequently punished) by FIFA, which disqualified him for three years.
Judge De Jorge had refused to hold this interrogation, considering it unnecessary for his investigation, but the Criminal Chamber ordered him to carry it out. A measure that was carried out this morning, when Tomé responded for regarding half an hour to the parties’ questions. According to several legal sources present at the meeting, the coach has detailed the “sports reason” that led her to rule out Hermoso in her first call-up, for the match once morest Sweden in the Nations League: she had played very few preseason games with her equipment. Furthermore, as she has stressed, the media pressure surrounding the selection also had an influence. In fact, to justify himself on her day, Tomé said that he did not call her to “protect” her. The soccer player then responded with a statement: “Protect me from what? Or from whom?”.
For the judge, the Rubiales case is finished. Last week, the magistrate already proposed placing the four defendants on the bench: Rubiales; Vilda; Albert Luque, director of the national team (men); and Rubén Rivera, responsible for marketing of the organism. After four months of investigations, the magistrate has concluded that the kiss on the footballer “was not consensual and was a unilateral and surprising initiative” by the former president of the RFEF. Furthermore, the members of the federation then deployed a series of maneuvers to try to “break the will” of Hermoso and “get him to agree to record a video in which he said that the kiss had been consensual.” “The pressures to which the player was subjected created a situation of anxiety and intense stress,” summarizes the instructor.
The defense of Vilda, accused of participating in the alleged coercion, considered the statement of Tomé, who was his right-hand man within the technical team before replacing him, important. The coach maintains that he did not pressure the player, and that no one ordered him to do so. However, the thesis of the accusation is very different and the credibility of the technician is in question. Rafael del Amo, president of the National Women’s Football Committee, explained to the judge that he saw how Rubiales told the coach that he should go talk to the forward’s brother during the flight back to Spain from Sydney (Australia). And her brother, as well as a friend present in that conversation on the plane, added that Vilda pressured them and told them to think regarding the “personal and professional consequences” that the athlete might suffer.
This is how the judge explains it in his indictment: “After asking his technical team for advice, Rubiales asked Jorge Vilda to speak with the soccer player’s brother to convince her to participate in making a video with the intended content. Vilda then looked for her brother on the plane and, in the course of the conversation, warned him that if her sister did not agree to participate in the video, her refusal would have negative consequences for her and she would experience harm to her professional career as a soccer player. ”.
For his part, the magistrate places Luque and Rivera in the pressures deployed in Ibiza, where the soccer players celebrated the title. “Once in Spain and on behalf of Rubiales, Rubén Rivera asked Hermoso, repeatedly and persistently, to speak by phone with the entity’s head of integrity. Rivera insisted that he should participate in the video exonerating Rubiales, to which the athlete informed him that she did not want to talk regarding this topic.
“Despite Hermoso’s clear refusal, expressing his exhaustion, Rivera repeatedly insisted that he speak with Luque, also with the intention of insisting that he participate in the video,” continues the judge’s resolution, issued by the last week: “Hermoso replied to Luque on WhatsApp, once more refusing to speak with him […] Given the repeated refusals, Luque showed up at the hotel trying to force Jennifer to talk to him to convince her to participate in the video. “He insisted through WhatsApp to the player and also personally to Jennifer’s friend to talk to him.” “Finally, in the face of the emphatic refusal, Luque sent a message to Jennifer’s friend, insisting on his request for help to justify Rubiales’ behavior, expressing his anger, accusing her of being a bad person, wishing her that she finds herself very alone in life and announcing to him that he will be happy to see that happen.”
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