In February, Rubiales was fined €10,800 (£9,052) for that offence but found not guilty of coercion over allegations he pressured Hermoso into publicly saying the kiss was consensual.

Prosecutors have called for Rubiales to be jailed and appealed that verdict, seeking a retrial with a different judge after alleging the original was biased in Rubiales’s favour.

Rubiales grabbed Hermoso by the head and kissed her on the lips as Spain’s players received their medals for winning the 2023 World Cup.

The incident, which occurred after Spain defeated England in Sydney, was witnessed by millions on television and in the stadium, and triggered protests and calls for Rubiales’s resignation.

The 47-year-old previously said he will appeal against the guilty verdict.

Three of Rubiales’s former colleagues were also accused of colluding in the alleged coercion.

Jorge Vilda, coach of the World Cup-winning side, Rubén Rivera, the Real Federación Española de Fútbol (RFEF)’s former head of marketing, and Albert Luque, former sporting director, were all cleared.

The court’s ruling also banned the former football president from going within a 200m radius of Hermoso or communicating with her for one year.

During the trial, Rubiales told the court he was “absolutely sure” Hermoso had given her consent before he kissed her.

He described the kiss as an “act of affection”, adding that in the moment it was “something completely spontaneous”.

In her testimony, Hermoso insisted she had not given her consent and said the incident had “stained one of the happiest days of my life”.

She told the court in Madrid: “My boss was kissing me and this shouldn’t happen in any social or work setting.”

The incident gave momentum to a Me Too-style movement in the Spanish women’s game, in which players sought to combat sexism and achieve parity with their male peers.

Rubiales resigned in September 2023 following weeks of resisting pressure to stand down and after he was suspended by Fifa.

Prosecutors first filed a complaint from Hermoso about Rubiales to Spain’s high court in the days prior to his resignation. He was formally charged in early 2024.

Her teammates Irene Paredes, Laia Codina, and Alexia Putellas appeared at the trial of Mr Rubiales in Madrid on Thursday, where he is accused of sexual assault and coercion.

Ms Putellas said Ms Hermoso had felt “overwhelmed” after the incident, while Ms Codina said she was “sad” and “not enjoying herself”.

Mr Rubiales kissed Ms Hermoso on the lips during the 2023 Fifa Women’s World Cup medal ceremony in Australia, triggering protests and calls for his resignation. He denies any wrongdoing.

Ms Hermoso had told the court on Monday she had never given permission to be kissed at the World Cup medal ceremony and felt “disrespected” as a woman.

Ms Putellas said she thought at the time the incident had been something “fortuitous” and a “misunderstanding” but Ms Hermoso then later showed her a video and said she did not know how it occurred to Mr Rubiales to kiss her, according to local Spanish media.

The court heard from Ms Paredes that while on the bus to the airport after the World Cup final, she told her teammates to stop making jokes about the incident, saying it was “serious”.

Ms Putellas said that Ms Hermoso was “overwhelmed” on the plane back to Spain.

“She started crying from exhaustion,” the Barcelona player added.

The 31-year-old said Ms Hermoso was asked to speak to Mr Rubiales on the plane who told her that she should “come out” and “deny that there was no consent” in the kiss.

“She was angry and she said that there was no need for him to explain the facts to her because she had experienced it, that she wasn’t going to do that,” Ms Putellas said.

Ms Codina told the trial that during the team’s celebratory trip to the Spanish island of Ibiza, Ms Hermoso was “sad, she was not enjoying herself, far from it” even though it “should have been the best moment” of her life

1:00Hermoso ‘told teammate Rubiales asked her to lie about kiss’

Three colleagues of Mr Rubiales are also on trial, accused of colluding in the alleged coercion: Jorge Vilda, coach of the World Cup-winning side, Rubén Rivera, the federation’s former head of marketing, and former sporting director, Albert Luque. They all deny the charges.

On Wednesday, the court heard that Mr Vilda spoke to Rafael Hermoso – brother of Jenni Hermoso – on the flight back to Spain, telling him that Mr Rubiales feared for his position, according to local Spanish media.

Mr Vilda asked him to speak to his sister about her making a video with Ms Rubiales that would downplay the kiss.

The coach warned that his sister could face “professional and personal consequences” if she did not cooperate, Rafael Hermoso said.

Speaking in court on Monday, Ms Hermoso said she and the then-president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation hugged and celebrated at the football event, saying that he then grabbed her “by the ears and kiss[ed] me on the mouth”.

“I didn’t hear or understand anything,” she said, adding that “a kiss on the lips is only given when I decide so”.

The footballer said she felt “completely abandoned by the federation”.

Prosecutors are calling for Mr Rubiales to receive a one-year prison sentence for sexual assault for the kiss.

They are also calling for him to be given a sentence of a year-and-a-half for coercion, for allegedly trying to pressure Ms Hermoso into saying publicly that the kiss was consensual.

Mr Rubiales denies the charges. The trial continues.

Hermoso is scheduled to appear as a witness on the opening day having travelled from Mexico, where she plays club football. The trial runs until 19 February.

As Spain’s players received their medals after defeating England in Sydney to win the 2023 World Cup, Rubiales grabbed Hermoso by the head and kissed her on the lips. Afterwards, Hermoso said the kiss had not been consensual, while Rubiales insisted it had been.

The incident triggered protests and calls for Rubiales’s resignation, and it also entered the political arena. Prime minister Pedro Sánchez, whose left-wing government has approved reforms seeking to boost gender equality and ensure consent in sexual relations, said that Rubiales’s kiss had shown that “there is still a long way to go when it comes to equality and respect between women and men”.

After initially remaining defiant and denouncing a witch-hunt driven by “fake feminism”, the federation president eventually resigned, before legal charges were brought against him.

Prosecutors are calling for Rubiales to receive a one-year prison sentence for sexual assault for the kiss. They are also calling for him to be given a sentence of a year-and-a-half for coercion, for allegedly trying to pressure Hermoso into saying publicly that the kiss was consensual. Rubiales denies the charges.

Three colleagues of Rubiales are also on trial, accused of colluding in the alleged coercion: Jorge Vilda, coach of the World Cup-winning side, Rubén Rivera, the federation’s former head of marketing, and former sporting director, Albert Luque. They all deny the charges.

Isabel Fuentes has watched the female national team closely ever since she was among the first women to represent Spain at football, from 1971 onwards. She describes the furore caused by the Rubiales kiss as “very sad”, because of how it overshadowed the World Cup victory, which, when mentioned, brings her to the verge of tears.

“It was something we would have liked to experience, but we weren’t allowed to,” she says. “These players won it for us. They have lived out our dreams.”

Fuentes played when the dictatorship of Francisco Franco was still in place and the women’s team were not even allowed to wear the Spanish flag on their shirts.

“The regime said: ‘We don’t want you to play football, but we’ll just ignore you,'” she says. “And the federation put all manner of obstacles in our way.”

Like many fans, she was concerned by how the Rubiales controversy affected the international image of Spanish football and she was also shocked by footage showing the former federation president celebrating the World Cup win by grabbing his crotch as he stood just a few feet away from Spain’s Queen Letizia.

But younger players, like Belén Peralta, prefer to emphasise how far women’s football has come, rather than dwell on the Rubiales case. Playing for third-division side Olimpia Las Rozas, Peralta says that even in the last few years she has noticed a shift in terms of the attention and support that women’s football receives.

“When I was younger, girls playing football was kind of strange, you were told, ‘Oh, that’s for boys,’ or ‘That’s not a girl’s thing,'” she says. “And nowadays, you go to some places and you say, ‘I’m a footballer,’ and that’s so cool and attractive.”

Her teammate, Andrea Rodríguez, agrees. Although she says that occasionally she might hear sexist comments about women’s football, social attitudes are overwhelmingly positive.

“People are more open-minded now,” she says.