The ongoing saga of Spanish federation (RFEF) president Luis Rubiales has taken a turn for the bizarre, as his mother has locked herself inside a church and declared a hunger strike.
Ángeles Béjar has said she will stay inside the Divina Pastora church in Motril, Spain, until justice for her embattled son is served.
Rubiales is under fire for kissing Spain forward Jenni Hermoso on the lips in the aftermath of Spain’s World Cup triumph — an act Hermoso has insisted was not consensual.
The RFEF president, however, continues to say that Hermoso did consent and in a fiery speech on Friday, said he would not resign despite increasing pressure to do so.
Speaking to EFE, Béjar decried the “inhuman, bloodthirsty witch hunt which my son is being subjected to” and said that “there is no sexual abuse when there is consent on both sides, as shown in the images.”
Béjar’s claims echo those from a bizarre RFEF statement released on Friday night, which analyzed the interaction between Rubiales and Hermoso in excruciatingly detailed fashion, coming to the conclusion that Hermoso was lying when she said the president’s kiss was not consensual.
Rubiales’s cousin Vanessa Ruiz said that Béjar is “a very religious person who has gone on hunger strike and does not want to leave the church,” adding that she has “health problems and is suffering a lot.”
On Saturday, FIFA announced that its Disciplinary Committee had provisionally suspended Rubiales for 90 days amid an ongoing investigation.
Meanwhile, Spain’s entire World Cup-winning squad has said they’re on strike until the “current leaders” are no longer in power.
“[Rubiales] is a beautiful person, with a very good heart and very noble, whoever knows him knows it,” Ruiz added. “We think what they are doing with him is very unfair.”
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