 |
| Former Brazilian defender Dani Alves at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar 2022. (Image by Zhizhao Wu/Getty Images) |
Former Barcelona and Brazil footballer Dani Alves has been found guilty of raping a woman in a Barcelona nightclub, sentenced to four and a half years in prison. Alves had denied sexually assaulting the woman in the early hours of 31 December 2022. His lawyer has requested his acquittal and said she would appeal against the verdict. A lawyer for the victim welcomed the verdict, stating that it "recognises what we have always known: the truth [as told] by the victim and the suffering there has been." The court also handed Alves a four-and-a-half year sentence and ordered him to face a further five years' probation.
The prosecution had asked for a nine-year prison sentence, but the court took into account Alves's decision to pay the victim €150,000 (£128,500) in damages regardless of the trial outcome. The court did not accept the argument that he should be given a more lenient sentence because he was drunk. Prosecutors claimed that 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 had no knowledge of. They argued that it was at this point that Alves turned violent, forcing the woman to have sex despite her repeated requests to leave.
The court found that there was evidence other than the victim's testimony that proved that she had been raped. It stated that Alves had "abruptly grabbed the complainant" and thrown her to the ground, then raped her while preventing her from moving as "the complainant said no and wanted to leave". Alves has been held in pre-trial detention since January 2023 and has changed his testimony on several occasions.
