Simon Hunter
IN ANOTHER bizarre twist to the ongoing controversy surrounding Spain’s Football Federation chief Luis Rubiales, his mother on Monday shut herself away in a church and went on hunger strike in protest against what she called the ‘inhuman witch hunt’ against her son.
Rubiales, 46, has been under increasing pressure to resign from his position after he forcibly kissed player Jenni Hermoso on the lips after Spain’s women’s team won the World Cup in Sydney last Sunday. The chairman, however, is refusing to go, despite having been suspended by FIFA due to his actions.
His mother, Angeles Bejar, locked herself in the Divina Pastora church in the town of Motril in Granada on Monday morning, saying that she was going on hunger strike until there is a solution to the ‘bloody, inhuman witch hunt that they are subjecting my son to, something that he does not deserve’.
She added that her protest would continue ‘indefinitely, day and night’, until justice was done for her son, according to news agency EFE.
Bejar also called on Hermoso to ‘tell the truth’ about what happened.
In an extraordinary turn of events on Friday, Rubiales did not quit as was expected but instead claimed that the kiss with Hermoso had been with consent. This is something that the player denies.
He also described calls for him to quit as a witch hunt, one that was led by ‘false feminists’ who are gunning for his ‘social assasination’.
Spain’s Football Federation is due to urgently meet today, Monday, to ‘evaluate the situation in which it finds itself’ after the controversy entered its second week.
Read more:
- Soccer’s world governing body FIFA opens disciplinary proceedings against Luis Rubiales in Spanish sexist kissing scandal
- Pressure mounts on Spain’s Football Federation chairman Luis Rubiales to quit after ‘intolerable sexist act’
- Luis Rubiales ‘forced kiss’ row latest: Spain’s governing body of football calls emergency meeting
