By Alyssa McMurtry
OVIEDO, Spain (AA) - A Barcelona court sentenced football player Dani Alves to 4 1/2 years behind bars on Thursday for violently raping a young woman.
The court determined that Alves “forcibly grabbed the victim, threw her to the ground and prevented her from moving and penetrated her … despite the fact that she had said no, that she wanted to leave.”
The incident took place in the bathroom of a Barcelona nightclub at the end of 2022.
The prosecutor had asked for nine years in prison, while the victim’s lawyer argued for 12.
However, the requirement for him to pay the victim €150,000 ($163,000) helped lower his sentence.
He has already been in preventative custody for over a year, which counts toward his jail time.
Upon his release, he will be on probation for five more years. He will also have a restraining order against going near the victim’s home or workplace.
Alves, who changed his story several times, originally told Spanish media that he had never met the victim. By the time the trial began a few weeks ago, he said it was consensual but also that he was very drunk at the time.
The court, however, said it believed the victim’s story that the sex was not consensual, pointing to her unwavering story and the physical evidence.
Alves began his European football career in Sevilla, winning two UEFA Cups and the Copa del Rey.
From there, he signed with Barcelona for €32.5 million — making him the third-most-expensive defender ever at the time. With Barca, where he played from 2008 to 2016, the team won several major titles.
In 2022, he joined the Mexican club UNAM. The team terminated his contract after he was arrested in Barcelona for sexual assault last year.