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Former Barcelona and Brazil full-back Dani Alves has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison for sexual assault.
Alves, 40, was arrested by local police in January 2023 as part of an investigation into an alleged sexual assault at a Barcelona nightclub.
Spanish prosecutors alleged that Alves sexually assaulted a 23-year-old woman on the night of December 30, 2022, at the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona. He has repeatedly denied the charges against him.
Alves was found guilty on Thursday morning. He has also been sentenced to a further five years of “supervised” release following his release and ordered to pay €150,000 (£128,000, $163,000) to the victim plus legal fees.
Alves cannot communicate with the victim for nine years and six months, nor come within one kilometer of her.
Spanish prosecutors had requested a nine-year prison sentence for Alves.
“The ruling considers it proven that the victim did not give her consent and that there are elements of evidence, in addition to the testimony of the complainant, to understand that the rape occurred,” the court said in a statement.
A member of the victim’s prosecutor’s office, David Sáez, said: “We are not satisfied with the sentence.
“We have to consider whether the severity of the penalty is proportional to the seriousness of the facts that have now been proven.”
Alves, who played 408 games for Barça in two spells, as well as 126 times for Brazil, has been detained since his arrest on January 20, 2023. Before his trial began on February 5, he had been held in a prison to the northwest of Barcelona.
Five people testified at the beginning of the trial: the alleged victim, her friend, her cousin, a waiter and a doorman at the nightclub. On the day the trial began, Alves’ defense requested that he testify on the last and final day of the trial.
The next day, 21 witnesses took the stand. Among the most prominent were Joana Sanz, Alves’ wife, and Bruno Brasil, the friend who was with the footballer that night in question.
On the last day in court, Wednesday, February 7, forensic, medical and psychological experts also testified. Alves spoke towards the end of the process and invoked his right to be questioned only by his lawyer and not by the alleged victim’s lawyer.
Throughout the investigation, Alves has provided different accounts of the events. In an interview in June, he confessed to initially providing false information about the incident.
Initially, Alves refuted the accusations of sexual penetration, stating that the woman had performed oral sex on him. However, during his second statement before the investigating judge on April 17 last year, he admitted that sexual penetration did occur, but that it was consensual. Alves acknowledged that he had lied in previous statements in an attempt to preserve his marriage.
GO DEEPER
Dani Alves: all the details of his rape case as the former Barça player is found guilty
(JORDI BORRAS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)