A Spanish court has sentenced Dani Alves, a former Brazilian football player to four years and six months in jail.
The court on Thursday, February 22, found the former FC Barcelona player guilty of raping a woman in a Barcelona nightclub.
40-year-old Alves denied any wrongdoing during the trial as he can appeal against the decision.
The ruling by three-judge panel in a Barcelona court followed a three-day trial, all in February.
It found Alves sexually assaulted his victim early in the morning of December 31, 2022, when she said he raped her in a bathroom of an upmarket Barcelona nightclub.
Spanish state prosecutors had sought a nine-year prison sentence for Alves while the lawyers representing his accuser wanted 12 years. His defence asked for his acquittal, or if found guilty a one-year sentence plus €50,000 (£43,000) compensation for the victim.
Alves has been in jail since being detained on January, 20. His requests for bail were denied because the court considered him a flight risk. Brazil does not extradite its citizens when they are sentenced in other countries.
The victim told state prosecutors she danced with Alves and willingly entered the nightclub bathroom, but that later when she wanted to leave he would not let her. She said he slapped her, insulted her and forced her to have sexual relations against her will.
Alves had denied any sexual contact with her before admitting to sexual relations that he said were consensual.
According to him, he had been trying to save his marriage by not admitting to the encounter initially. During the trial, his defence focused on trying to show that Alves was drunk when he met the woman.
The conviction shatters Alves’s legacy as one of football’s most successful players. Alves won dozens of titles with elite clubs including Barcelona, Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain.
He also helped Brazil win two Copa Américas and an Olympic gold medal as he featured at three FIFA World Cup.
Alves played for Barcelona from 2008 to 2016 and briefly rejoined the club in 2022.
He was with the Mexican club, Pumas when arrested which made the club to terminate his contract immediately.
Alves’ case was the first high-profile sex crime since Spain overhauled its legislation in 2022 to make consent, or the lack thereof, central to defining a sex crime in response to an upswell of protests after a gang-rape case during the San Fermín bull-running festival in Pamplona in 2016.
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