Spanish Football Rocked By ‘Kissgate’ As Mother Goes On Hunger Strike For ‘Justice’

The scan­dal engulf­ing Span­ish foot­ball chief Luis Rubiales inten­si­fied as his moth­er defi­ant­ly embarked on a hunger strike, vow­ing to fight “until her last breath” to clear her son’s name.

From her protest strong­hold inside a church in Motril, near Mala­ga, 72-year-old Ange­les Bejar declared she would suf­fer indef­i­nite­ly to achieve “jus­tice” for Rubiales. Her actions came after the head of the RFEF found him­self at the cen­ter of a firestorm fol­low­ing con­tro­ver­sial footage of him kiss­ing wom­en’s foot­ball star Jen­ni Her­moso after Spain’s World Cup win.

Rubiales faces mount­ing calls to resign over the inci­dent and sub­se­quent accu­sa­tions of sex­u­al­ly inap­pro­pri­ate behav­ior. But his moth­er pas­sion­ate­ly defend­ed him, accus­ing Her­moso of lying and sug­gest­ing sin­is­ter forces were work­ing against her son. “I don’t care if I die doing this — Luis is an hon­est man,” she stat­ed defiantly.

As her hunger strike entered a sec­ond day with only flu­ids for sus­te­nance, divi­sions grew with­in Span­ish soci­ety over how to inter­pret Rubiales’ actions. While politi­cians attacked him, near­ly 100 locals ral­lied in sup­port, car­ry­ing signs pres­sur­ing Her­moso to “tell the truth.”

Even the UN wad­ed into the esca­lat­ing row, urg­ing account­abil­i­ty and an end to abuse in sports. But as Medics mon­i­tored Ange­les’ con­di­tion inside the church shel­ter, it seemed “Kiss­gate” was far from over.