Izuchukwu Okosi
Dani Alves jail sentence: Former Brazil international and Barcelona defender Dani Alves on Thursday has been found guilty of r@ping a woman in a Barcelona nightclub and has bagged a four-and-half year jail term.
Consequently, Alves has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison and his once illustrious career is effectively over.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelThe 40-year-old is unarguably the most decorated footballer in the history of the game and is widely regarded as one of the finest right-backs, especially in his native Brazil he considers the legendary Cafu as the only one better than him in his position.
The said incident was said to have taken place in the early hours of 31 December 2022.
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The former footballer’s lawyer had asked for his acquittal and said she would appeal against the court verdict.
A lawyer for the victim welcomed the verdict, saying that it “recognizes what we have always known: the truth [as told] by the victim and the suffering there has been”.
As well as handing Alves a four-and-a-half year sentence, the court said he should face a further five years’ probation.
The prosecution had asked for a nine-year prison sentence. In Spain, a claim of r@pe is investigated under the general accusation of sexual assault, and convictions can lead to prison sentences of four to 15 years.
According to Spanish media on Thursday, the court took into account Alves’s decision to pay the victim €150,000 (£128,500) in damages regardless of the outcome of the trial when it decided on the length of his prison term.
The court did not, however, accept the argument put forward by his lawyers that he should be given a more lenient sentence because he was drunk.
His wife Joana Sanz, 31, said he had appeared very drunk when he got back to their Barcelona home the night of the crime and had bumped into furniture before collapsing on the bed.
Rather the court argued that his alcohol consumption had not affected his behaviour.
Prosecutors said Alves and his friend had bought champagne for three young women before Alves lured one of them to a VIP area of the nightclub with a toilet which she did not know of.
They argued that it was at this point he turned violent, forcing the woman to have the act despite her repeated requests to leave.
Alves had maintained she could have left “if she wanted to”. However, the court found that she did not consent.
Spanish law was changed recently to enshrine the importance of consent under the so-called “Only Yes is Yes” principle.
In a statement, the court said there was evidence other than the victim’s testimony that proved that she had been abused.
It said Alves had “abruptly grabbed the complainant” and thrown her to the ground. He had then rå}ed her while preventing her from moving as “the complainant said no and wanted to leave”, it added.
The woman said the abuse had caused her “anguish and terror.”
Alves has been held in pre-trial detention since January 2023 and has changed his testimony on several occasions.
He first denied knowing his accuser only to claim later that he had met her in the toilet but that nothing had happened between them.
He then changed his version of events again, saying that it was consensual. “We were both enjoying ourselves,” he alleged.
Alves played more than 400 times for Barcelona, winning six league titles and three Champions Leagues across two spells with the club. He was also part of Brazil’s 2022 World Cup squad.
He has won trophies playing for Sevilla, Juventus, and PSG and is among Brazil’s most capped internationals, with 126 appearances.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
