CNN —
Spanish soccer chief
Luis Rubiales has refused to resign from his position as Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) president following a week of fierce criticism after video showed him placing an unwanted kiss on a star player of Spain’s winning Women’s World Cup team.
Rubiales was speaking at the federation’s Extraordinary General Assembly on Friday and said he will “fight to the end.”
In a defiant speech, he described the kiss as “mutual” and spoke of “unjust” campaigns and “fake feminism” and emphatically said several times during the almost 30-minute address that he would not resign.
Rubiales was filmed forcibly kissing Spain star Jennifer Hermoso – who helped
La Roja win its
first Women’s World Cup title on Sunday in Sydney – on the lips after she collected her winners’ medal, an act which
the 33-year-old World Cup winner later said she “didn’t like” and “didn’t expect.”
On Monday, Rubiales admitted he had “made a mistake,” but criticism continued to pour in throughout the week from the soccer world and Spanish politicians, including Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, who said the apology for what he called an “unacceptable gesture” was “not enough.”
Luis Rubiales kisses Jennifer Hermoso during the medal ceremony following Spain's 1-0 win over England on Sunday.
Noe Llamas/Sports Press Photo/Reuters
On Friday the embattled president issued a staunch defense of his actions at the final, saying: “Everyone there – even some of them my family, my daughters – the desire that could have been there in that kiss is exactly the same that could have been as giving a kiss to one of my daughters. No more, no less.
“It was a spontaneous kiss … It was spontaneous, mutual, euphoric and with consent, which is the key. This is the key to all of the criticism, of all of the campaign which has been mounted in this country: that it was without consent. No. It was with consent.”
On Wednesday, following strong criticism of Rubiales’ kiss from journalists, politicians, and campaign groups, Hermoso said that Spain’s Association of Professional Soccer Players (FUTPRO) and her agency TMJ would be “defending my interests and acting as spokespersons on this matter.”
Then on Thursday, global governing body FIFA said that it had opened disciplinary proceedings against Rubiales as he may have violated the game’s “basic rules of decent conduct.”
Rubiales also said that he was in “no position of dominance” during the kiss and that he had wanted to console Hermoso, who had missed a penalty to put Spain 2-0 ahead during the final.