BRAZILIAN footballer Dani Alves, who played professionally for Barcelona among other prominent clubs, has been found guilty of rape Catalonia’s top court.
Alves, 40, was today sentenced to four and a half years in prison for raping a woman in a night club in Barcelona, Spain.
The defender, who is one of the most decorated footballers in history, had denied sexually assaulting the woman in the early hours of December 31, 2022.
His lawyer had asked for him to be acquitted and Alves can appeal against the sentence.
The court also ordered Alves, who had maintained throughout that the sex was consensual, to pay €150,000 euros to the victim, whose identity has been protected.
The prosecutor had sought a nine-year prison term for Alves, who was arrested in January last year, with the case attracting significant attention because gender violence has become an increasingly dominant topic of public discourse in Spain.
It has been one of the most high-profile trials in Spain since a law was passed in 2022 that made consent a key element in sexual assault cases and that increased the minimum prison time for assault involving violence.
Alves was a regular in the Brazil squad and featured for Sevilla, before joining Barcelona where he won several LaLiga titles as well as the UEFA Champions League, playing alongside the likes of Lionel Messi, Andreas Iniesta and Sergio Busquets.
