Dani Alves was convicted and sentenced to four and a half years in jail by Catalonia’s top court on Thursday after it was determined that the former football player from Brazil and ex-Barcelona player had sexually assaulted a woman in a Barcelona nightclub in 2022.
Alves was also mandated by the court to provide the victim 150,000 euros ($162,990).
The court stated in a statement, “The sentence considers that it has been proven that the victim did not consent, and that there is evidence, in addition to the plaintiff’s testimony, to consider the rape proven.”
According to Alves, the sex was consenting. Nine years in prison was what the prosecutor was asking for.
The forty-year (40) old ex Barcelona defender has been detained on remand since his arrest in January of last year. Because of Alves’ well-known status as well as the growing prominence of gender violence in Spanish public debate, the case received a lot of attention.
Since a law implemented in 2022 doubled the minimum jail sentence for violent assaults and made consent a crucial aspect in cases of sexual assault, it is one of the most well-known trials in Spain.
