Ángeles Béjar says Luis Rubiales is ‘incapable of hurting anyone’, in row over World Cup kiss of Jenni Hermoso
The mother of Spain’s embattled football chief, Luis Rubiales, has reportedly shut herself in a church in southern Spain and declared herself to be on a hunger strike over what she described as the “inhumane and bloodthirsty hunt” of her son.
The decision by Ángeles Béjar to lock herself into a 19th-century church is the latest twist in a saga that has gripped Spain for the past week after her 46-year-old son grabbed the Spanish forward Jenni Hermoso by the head and planted a kiss on her lips during the World Cup medal ceremony.
As video of the kiss sparked uproar across Spain and around the world, Rubiales vowed to stay on as the head of the Spanish football federation. On Saturday Fifa announced that it had provisionally suspended him for 90 days, ordering him and the federation to refrain from contact with Hermoso and those close to her.
On Monday, news agency Efe reported that Rubiales’ mother had shut herself into the Divina Pastora church in the city of Motril, deciding to remain there with her sister after the parish priest left.
