Inside disgraced ex-Spanish football chief Luis Rubiales’ toxic family split – after he was pelted with eggs by his eccentric UNCLE who called him a ‘sleazebag’ in attack at book launch
Former Spanish FA president Luis Rubiales’ egg attacker uncle is an actor said to be living with his grandmother after falling on hard times.
The ex-soccer boss was pelted with eggs on Thursday night at the official presentation in Madrid of his book called Matar a Rubiales or ‘Kill Rubiales’ in English.
The dad-of-three, convicted of sexually assaulting Spanish international Jenni Hermoso with his infamous August 2023 Women’s World Cup kiss, had to be stopped by security after running at his assailant.
Rubiales himself named the mystery man after the drama as his uncle Luis Ruben Rubiales, dubbing him ‘deranged’ following reports a disgruntled relative had taken aim at him and admitting his family was ‘very divided.’
And overnight the bizarre incident took a new twist following Luis Ruben’s arrest by police as it emerged he is an actor who has appeared in ads and TV shows in Spain alongside some of the country’s household names.
Luis Ruben went unrecognised immediately after the incident because he had his long hair hidden under a black beanie hat and was wearing dark glasses and large headphones.
Luis Rubiales was pelted with eggs by his own uncle Luis Ruben at the launch of his new book
The disgraced former Spanish football federation chief named Luis Ruben himself after the attack in Madrid
But old clips of ads and TV series he has starred in are now being dusted down after he made the headlines this time round for completely different and more unconventional reasons.
Luis Ruben, a month younger than his 48-year-old uncle, reportedly lives in the Costa Tropical resort of Motril east of Malaga with his 90-year-old granny.
Recent selfie photos he has posted online show him wearing the same headphones he had on when he pelted the former soccer boss with eggs, although he had shaved off the beard he was sporting over the summer for his violent stunt.
In one of the videos he has published on his social media, an ad for a loan firm he stars in, Luis Ruben is filmed throwing back his head as he showed off his immaculately-kept back-length long hair.
He is a paternal uncle of the ex-Spanish FA president, making him a former brother-in-law of Rubiales’ pensioner mum Angeles Bejar who went on hunger strike at a church in her son’s hometown of Motril for two days at the end of August 2023 before being rushed to hospital 48 hours into her protest.
Angeles, who is divorced from Rubiales’ dad, said at the time she had taken the drastic decision to stop eating to get Jenni Hermoso to ‘tell the truth’ about the kiss that led to her son’s sex assault conviction at the start of the year, despite his insistence the Spanish international had consented to it.
Luis Ruben is also the younger brother of another of Rubiales’ uncles, his sworn enemy Juan Rubiales.
Juan had a high-profile falling out with his nephew who he has said fired him from his job at the football federation in 2020, thought to have sewn the seeds of a family war linked to Thursday night’s egg attack.
Rubiales’ uncle is believed to be an actor who lives with his grandmother near Malaga
On his social media profile Luis Ruben is frequently pictured wearing the same headphones as the egg assailant
In the wake of the egg-launching some of Luis Ruben’s acting performances surfaced online
Luis Ruben is the former brother-in-law of Rubiales’ mother Angeles Bejar, who staged a hunger strike in the summer of 2023 in support of her son
He has claimed in the past: ‘Luis needs a social re-education programme and a re-education in his relationship with women.’
He has also described him in interviews as a man ‘obsessed with power, luxury, money and women.’
The former Spanish FA chief’s assailant shouted: ‘Don’t worry, nothing’s up’ before hurling three eggs and yelling: ‘Sinverguenza’ at Rubiales which in English would translate as sleazebag.
Reacting to confirmation his uncle was the egg man, Rubiales said afterwards: ‘He’s a deranged person who can’t be okay.
‘I think he’s been arrested and let’s see what we can do to make sure these things don’t happen again. It’s a shame.’
A spokesman for Spain’s National Police in Madrid confirmed this morning: ‘The suspect was arrested for criminal damage, because a screen behind Luis Rubiales was broken in the incident.’
Police sources said he was expected to appear in court on Friday morning after spending the night in a police cell. He has not been named by police as is normal in Spain at this stage of an ongoing case.
The egg-thrower was led away from the event in the Spanish capital by police and is thought to be due in court on Friday morning
Rubiales was convicted of forcibly kissing Spain international Jenni Hermoso at the 2023 World Cup final
But his new memoir claims that he has been a victim of the ‘greatest conspiracy’ in Spanish football history
Rubiales criticises his government, armchair feminists and wokeness and claims he has been damaged by the ‘greatest conspiracy’ in the history of Spanish football in his new 506-page book.
He is due to present it in several cities including his native town of Motril on the Costa del Sol and Granada where he spends a lot of his time.
Public prosecutors indicted Rubiales after the kiss on the lips the world witnessed on live TV and demanded a one-year prison sentence for sexual assault and another year and a half if he was found guilty of coercion over the alleged pressure he put on 34-year-old Jenni to admit she agreed to the smacker.
He ended up being acquitted on the coercion charge following a trial in February in Madrid, but convicted of the sex crime and fined £8,395 (10,8000 euros).
A judge also banned the ex-Spanish soccer chief from going within 200 metres of Jenni, who claimed from the witness stand the kiss had ‘tainted one of the happiest days of her life’ and accused Rubiales of abusing her as a woman.
Rubiales, who had a brief spell at Scottish club Hamilton Academical while he was a professional footballer and was criticised by Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez over his infamous World Cup kiss, is appealing his conviction with Spain’s Supreme Court.
Publishers Ultima Linea offered a clear insight last month into some of the claims the book, which costs just over £20 to buy, would contain in an online synopsis.
It said: ‘In this book, written by the victim of the greatest conspiracy Spanish football has ever seen and one of the harshest and cruellest unjust persecutions in Spanish democracy, the names and interests of the ‘old aristocracy’ are revealed.
‘Allied with certain ministries, the interests of the government itself, armchair feminism, and the woke world, they achieved something unprecedented in the most advanced democracies: the civil assassination and media condemnation of ‘sexual assault’ for the most innocent kiss broadcast live to more than 300 million viewers.’
The kiss took place after Rubiales grabbed his crotch as he went onto the medal podium to greet Queen Letizia and her then-16 year-old daughter before congratulating striker Jenni, who now plays her club football in Mexico.
He quit as Spanish FA president in the wake of scandal in September 2023.
Less than three weeks earlier at its extraordinary general assembly he had raged in a direct attack on the likes of Spain’s then-Equality Minister Irene Montero when he was still insisting he would never resign: ‘I want to say looking at my three daughters who are over there that today they have to learn a lesson about what equality is.
‘Equality is not differentiating when there is an opinion between what a man says and what a woman says. You have to differentiate between truth and lies, and I am telling the truth.
‘Daughters, learn it, it is a life lesson. You are real feminists, not the false feminism that is out there.
This false feminism does not seek justice, truth, it does not care about people.’
Two of Rubiales’ daughters, Lucia and Ana, were due to give evidence on their dad’s behalf at his trial before it emerged he had changed his mind about them testifying.
The current Spain’s men’s football team manager Luis de la Fuente testified as a witness with public prosecutor Marta Durantez accusing him of ‘inconsistencies’ over his insistence he didn’t know about the pressure allegedly asserted on Jenni or play any part in it.
Rubiales and former Barcelona defender Gerard Pique are still at the centre of a separate investigation over the contract to stage the Spanish Super Cup in Saudi Arabia following illegal commission claims tied to moving the competition abroad.
