By Victor Kanayo
Former Barcelona and Brazil player Dani Alves will spend four and half years in prison for sexually assaulting a woman in a nightclub in 2022.
Incidentally, the assault incident happened in Barcelona despite insistence by Alves that the sex was consensual.
Ex-Footballer’s Changing Claims
Alves who is 40, was first arrested in January 2023 after being accused of sexually assaulting a woman in the bathroom of an upscale Barcelona nightclub in the early hours of December 31, 2022.
He had remained in preventive pre-trial prison in Spain ever since, with a judge turning down regular requests for bail and deeming him a flight risk.
The case was heard over three days at a court in Barcelona earlier this month, with Alves changing his story for the fifth time shortly before the trial began.
At first, he maintained he did not know the alleged victim. He later said he had met the woman in the bathroom of the club but that nothing happened.
The former Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain defender, when confronted with biological evidence, changed his version of events again, saying she had consensually performed oral sex on him.
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Last April, following the results of further biological tests, Alves admitted for the first time that he had sex with the woman, claiming it was consensual and that he had lied to hide his infidelity to his wife.
Final Judgement
Now on Thursday morning, Catalonia’s top court gave final ruling which sent the former footballer to jail.
The court also ordered that Alves pay €150,000 ($162,990) to the victim, though the prosecutor had sought for nine years.
The judgement was categorically revealed by the court via a statement.
Part of the statement reads, “The sentence considers that it has been proven that the victim did not consent, and that there is evidence, in addition to the testimony of the plaintiff, to consider the rape proven.”
