Luis Rubiales Egged by Own Uncle at Chaotic Book Launch as Family Rift Goes Public

Eggs Fly in Madrid: Rubiales’ Book Launch Turns into Family Showdown

For Luis Rubiales, the $1 of the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), life after football has been anything but quiet. Just months after his high-profile conviction for sexual assault on World Cup winner Jenni Hermoso, Rubiales found himself at the center of a new and very public drama — this time, not on the pitch, but on the stage of his own book launch in Madrid.

The scene was surreal even by the standards of Spanish football’s recent tumult. As Rubiales unveiled his incendiary memoir, Matar a Rubiales (Killing Rubiales), a commotion erupted in the packed venue. A man rose from the audience and hurled three eggs toward the embattled ex-football chief. One egg splattered against his jacket; another hit his hand as he tried to fend it off. Within seconds, Rubiales leapt from his chair, apparently charging toward his assailant before security intervened. The moment was caught on camera, rapidly circulating on social media and news outlets alike.

But the most astonishing twist? The egg-thrower was not a political activist or angry football fan, but Rubiales’ own uncle — Luis Rubén Rubiales. The 48-year-old, reportedly a struggling actor living with his elderly mother in Motril, later told reporters outside Madrid’s Plaza de Castilla courthouse, “I’m very well, it’s as if I’ve just returned from a 15-day vacation in Benidorm and I have that energy. I have positive energy.” (GB News, Goal, LBC).

His nonchalance was matched by an almost comic admission: he’d also planned to throw a bag of breadsticks. “Why would he sue me?” he shrugged when asked if he feared legal action from his nephew. Madrid police confirmed he was detained for criminal damage, as a stage screen was broken in the chaos. Rubiales, for his part, called his uncle “deranged,” insisting he’d feared the man was armed and that only security’s intervention prevented a worse outcome.

A Family Rift Years in the Making

Behind the bizarre spectacle lies a family feud that has simmered for years. Luis Rubén is not the only uncle to have clashed with the former football boss. Another uncle, Juan Rubiales, has publicly accused Luis of being “obsessed with power, luxury, money, and women” — a charge that goes back to 2020, when Juan claims he was fired by his nephew. The family discord reached a fever pitch in 2023 when Rubiales’ mother staged a two-day hunger strike in a church to defend her son, before being hospitalized.

This latest eruption — eggs, breadsticks, and all — has made the rift impossible to ignore. If Rubiales hoped his book would allow him to control the narrative of his fall from grace, the mayhem in Madrid ensured that his personal and professional crises are now hopelessly intertwined.

Memoir, Media, and the Fight for Reputation

The book at the heart of this uproar, Matar a Rubiales, is 506 pages of defiance and grievance. Rubiales rails against “wokeness,” the Spanish government, and what he calls the “greatest conspiracy” in the country’s football history. He continues to cast himself as the victim of political agendas and media manipulation, framing his sexual assault conviction as part of a campaign by “the far left” and powerful institutions to destroy him.

Rubiales’ conviction stemmed from his non-consensual kiss of Jenni Hermoso during the medal ceremony at the 2023 Women’s World Cup — an act broadcast live to millions. While he was acquitted of a separate coercion charge, the court found him guilty of sexual assault, fining him and issuing a restraining order banning him from approaching Hermoso for one year (LBC). Hermoso told the court the kiss had “tainted one of the happiest days” of her life. Spanish law considers non-consensual kisses a form of sexual assault, and Rubiales’ lawyer has confirmed that an appeal is underway.

Yet, Rubiales remains unrepentant in public. “I’m not apologising to Jenni Hermoso because I asked her and she said: ‘Okay’,” he recently told reporters. He continues to argue that the incident was an overblown mistake, manipulated for political purposes. “It was a mistake, I wasn’t right. From there to everything that’s been blown out of proportion, distorted, taken to the extreme… with certain interests. It’s more than I deserved,” he said, claiming the controversy was used as a “smokescreen” during a volatile political period in Spain (Goal, Yahoo Sports).

Public Image in Freefall

The egg-throwing incident is the latest in a series of humiliations that have dogged Rubiales since the World Cup final. He resigned as RFEF president under mounting pressure and was banned from all football-related activity for three years by FIFA. Now, as he attempts to relaunch his image through his memoir, the chaotic launch has instead thrown his fractured family and ongoing legal woes into sharp relief.

The event also underscored how Rubiales’ efforts to reframe his legacy are being constantly undermined by both the courts and his own relatives. The egg-throwing — and the uncle’s subsequent media tour, complete with jokes about Benidorm and breadsticks — has become a symbol of the deep divisions not only within the Rubiales clan but in Spanish society at large, where debates over consent, power, and accountability remain fiercely contested.

As Rubiales continues his book tour, including stops in his hometown of Motril, he also faces a separate corruption investigation involving the Spanish Super Cup’s lucrative move to Saudi Arabia. But for now, the image that lingers is not one of a wronged reformer but of a disgraced football kingpin ducking eggs from his own family — a spectacle that, for better or worse, has etched itself into Spain’s cultural memory.

Assessment: The spectacle of Luis Rubiales being egged by his uncle at his own book launch is more than just a viral moment; it’s a window into the profound collapse of a once-powerful figure’s public and private worlds. The incident lays bare not only the bitterness of personal and familial conflict, but also the futility of image rehabilitation when deep, unresolved controversies — both legal and moral — remain at the heart of the story. In trying to reclaim his narrative, Rubiales has only amplified the very chaos he hoped to escape.