Luis de la Fuente, coach of Spain’s European Championship-winning men’s football team, has denied being involved in a campaign to pressure female player Jenni Hermoso not to report Luis Rubiales after he kissed her following the 2023 World Cup final.

On the second day of the trial in which former Spanish federation boss Rubiales faces charges of sexual assault and coercion, De la Fuente denied having participated at a meeting at the Spanish football federation (RFEF) headquarters to draw up a strategy protecting the then-president from any possible accusations from Hermoso.

Despite other witnesses having said De la Fuente was in Rubiales’s office on August 25, five days after the kiss had marred Spain’s World Cup victory in Sydney, the coach said he had been in a separate office and not involved in the president’s campaign to save his honour.

“I only went to talk about football,” De la Fuente said during a tense exchange with the prosecutor, who warned the coach that as a witness in a criminal trial he is obliged to tell the truth or face an accusation of perjury.

De la Fuente said that he had scarcely been aware of the controversy following the kiss and had slept most of the time on the flight from Australia back to Spain, during which some members of the RFEF party, including Rubiales, had discussed a media strategy to downplay the incident.

On August 25, RFEF officials met in Rubiales’s office to finalise a public statement in which the kiss was described as consensual and an “act of exuberance”.

“I was in a smaller adjoining office the whole time,” De la Fuente said, adding that Rubiales came and went when he had time to discuss the selection of Spain’s next squad.

When asked about his presence at a RFEF general assembly called that same day by Rubiales, De la Fuente showed irritation and said: “I’m not here to talk about that.”

The judge reminded the coach that he was there to answer the questions put to him.

At the assembly, De la Fuente and other officials applauded Rubiales as he defiantly shouted his refusal to resign over the kiss incident.

Less than a week later, De la Fuente apologised unreservedly for his show of support for his boss. Rubiales eventually resigned three weeks after the Sydney final.

Earlier on Tuesday the court heard how Pablo García Cuervo, the RFEF’s communications officer under Rubiales, had drafted a press release on the kiss, with his version of quotes Hermoso had given a Spanish radio station minutes after the incident.

García Cuervo said Hermoso had “contradicted herself” by at first playing down the importance of the kiss, which she later reported as “unconsented sexual assault”.

He said Hermoso was taken off the bus on the way to Sydney airport to discuss the statement and that she had “reluctantly” agreed to the wording. On Monday, Hermoso said she had not agreed to the press release’s contents but, faced by insistence from the RFEF team, had said “do what you want” before getting back on the team bus.