Kissgate: Luis Rubiales once kissed males on the lips

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Following the highly-condemned kiss Luis Rubiales gave Jenni Hermoso at the World Cup, he has been under different kinds of pressure. What he revealed in his recent interview with Piers Morgan Uncensored would offer him a measure of safety, but is shocking to many.

The ex-sports official will answer for himself at court on Friday, over accusations of sexual assault and coercion. A case was filed against him by Jenni Hermoso, without which the prosecutors in Spain could do nothing. Many have been calling for his resignation and sack before the case was filed, and many players and staff exited the RFEF (Spain’s football federation) for reasons connected with the kiss.

During the handing out of medals at the prize-giving ceremony of the Women’s World Cup, Luis Rubiales gave Jenni Hermoso a kiss on the lips at her turn. Though he affirms it was consensual, Jennifer Hermoso insisted later that it was not.

But she had given a statement just after the kiss, where she said it was not non-consensual – a statement she later refuted, claiming she was forced to release it by the RFEF.

Just after the kiss, there was a high-level alarm and dissatisfaction from mostly the female section concerning the kiss. Some social media users commented that Rubiales and Hermoso were likely in a relationship.

Pictures of the kiss, where Luis Rubiales held Jennifer Hermoso on the cheeks while planting a very passionate kiss on her lips, littered the internet. A lot of people openly wondered why the president would do such a thing.

Suddenly, a statement came from Jennifer Hermoso to dispel every bad judgment targeted at the president. This silenced things for some time, but not in the Western world or among the feminists, who know like the rest of the world that the kiss looked too intimate.

So what we had is a spontaneous act, a mutual act, an act that both consented to, which was driven by the emotion of the moment, the happiness, so I maintain that that is the truth of what happened.

– Luis Rubiales.

What would happen to the image of a player who accepted such a kiss openly was clear. Jennifer Hermoso needed to clear her name from the world’s bad book in any way possible. When the second statement came which refuted the first, arguments broke out in the internet between different genders, with some asking whether Luis Rubiales would kiss a male player in that manner.

Some argued that Spaniards had peculiar greetings. But what remained hidden was whether Rubiales would kiss a male player on the lips out of an excitement born of winning a World Cup. This question awaited him at the interview with Piers Morgan, and he answered it.

‘No doubt about it, 100 per cent,’ he had replied. ‘… when I was a player, there were many moments where we avoided relegation or we got promotion, where we have given what we call pecks on the lips.’

One of the things the former-FA president revealed by this was that people do some unplanned things during celebrations. The other thing was that he has kissed fellow men – something the court would try to investigate in his coming hearing on Friday. Since Luis Rubiales is just in his forties, and all the clubs he played in are possibly common knowledge, former team mates of his would likely be invited for witnessing.

The ex-president has been adamant to apologising to Jennifer Hermoso, claiming the kiss was by mutual agreement.

‘So what happened is bad for everyone,’ Rubiales said at the interview. ‘We had Jenni lifting me. We had the fleeting kiss, two tenths of a second, but what was created from that is crazy. So what’s left for me is to defend my dignity. So it’s not about that Piers, it’s about humility.’

Luis Rubiales resigned while still under FIFA’s 90-days mandatory suspension. He was also the vice-president of UEFA then, but dropped both positions at the same time.