FIFA Bans Former Spanish Soccer Chief for 3 Years

Soccer’s world governing physique on Monday banned Luis Rubiales, the previous president of Spain’s soccer federation, from the game for 3 years over his forcible kiss of a participant after the Women’s World Cup last in August.

Mr. Rubiales’s kiss of Jennifer Hermoso in the course of the Women’s World Cup medals ceremony solid a pall over the Spanish staff’s celebrations, drawing consideration away from a proud nationwide second and towards a legacy of sexism in Spanish soccer. It additionally led to accusations that he and the federation had pressured the participant to say the kiss was consensual.

Ms. Hermoso as a substitute filed a felony grievance of sexual assault, and Mr. Rubiales — who initially had resisted calls to resign — was positioned below a provisional 90-day suspension whereas FIFA, soccer’s governing physique, investigated the incident. He give up as the top of Spain’s soccer federation lower than every week after the ultimate, and amid a revolt by the ladies’s staff.

On Monday, FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee mentioned that Mr. Rubiales could be banned from “all football-related activities at the national and international levels for three years” for breaching the group’s disciplinary code by his actions after the ultimate on Aug. 20. It didn’t present additional particulars on the findings however mentioned that Mr. Rubiales can attraction the choice.

“FIFA reiterates its absolute commitment to respecting and protecting the integrity of all people and ensuring that the basic rules of decent conduct are upheld,” it mentioned in a press release.

There was no fast remark from Ms. Hermoso or Spain’s girls’s staff, which had refused to play in gentle of the incident with Mr. Rubiales.

Mr. Rubiales has insisted he did nothing improper on the medals ceremony, describing the kiss as a consensual “peck.”

Ms. Hermoso has mentioned that she “felt vulnerable and the victim of an impulse-driven, sexist, out-of-place act without any consent on my part” — and that she had initially confronted strain to downplay Mr. Rubiales’s actions.