Fifa’s disciplinary committee said on Saturday it had provisionally suspended Luis Rubiales, president of the Spanish football federation, amid uproar after he kissed player Jenni Hermoso on the lips after Spain’s victory in the Women’s World Cup last Sunday.

The suspension, which is for an initial 90 days and takes immediate effect, is pending the proceedings opened by Fifa against Rubiales that began on Thursday.

Rubiales, 46, has been defiant over the kiss - which has been condemned as unwanted by Hermoso, her teammates and the Spanish government - arguing it was consensual. Earlier on Saturday, the federation he heads had said it would stick by him.

After the Fifa statement, a spokesperson for the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) said: “We respect all the pronouncements of FIFA.”

In a statement through the federation, Rubiales said: “Luis Rubiales has stated that he will legally defend himself in the competent bodies, he fully trusts FIFA and reiterates that, in this way, he is given the opportunity to begin his defence so that the truth prevails and his complete innocence is proven.”

A beleaguered Rubiales had claimed at an emergency meeting on Friday: “A consensual ‘peck’ is enough to get me out of here? I will fight until the end.”

Both women and men players revolted on Friday after Rubiales shouted three times “I will not resign” despite international outrage over his unsolicited kiss.

Hermoso said she did not consent to the kiss and felt “vulnerable and the victim of an aggression”.

“I want to clarify that, as was seen in the images, at no time did I consent to the kiss he gave me and, of course, in no case did I seek to lift the president,” she said.

After Spanish men’s team striker Borja Iglesias announced he was quitting international football in solidarity, almost every potential Spanish international women’s player, including the Cup-winning 23-strong squad, signed a joint statement sent via their union demanding Rubiales’s removal.

That prompted the federation to hit back on Saturday, with a warning to the players that “playing for the national team is an obligation”. In a press release, the body attempted to undermine Hermoso’s claim by publishing four pictures that it suggested showed the embrace was consensual.

“The RFEF and the President will show each of the lies that are spread either by someone on behalf of the player or, if applicable, by the player herself,” it said.

With inputs from Reuters