Dani Alves, Brazilian footballer, former defender of FC Barcelona and PSG, will soon be tried for sexual assault, a criminal category including rape in Spain, the superior court of Catalonia confirmed to AFP on Monday July 31. The Brazilian international is accused of rape by a young woman. A trial date has not yet been set, the court said, adding that the charges against the footballer, who has been incarcerated since January, would be the same as those mentioned in the investigation, namely “a misdemeanor of sexual assault”. .
According to the Spanish press, the investigating judge in charge of the investigation summoned the footballer to a hearing on Wednesday to notify him of the trial and accompanied the opening of the proceedings with a “bail” of 150,000 euros not intended for allow release from prison but imposed as “a guarantee” to be advanced to cover possible harm.
This same judge had twice rejected the player’s request for release, highlighting “the high risk of absconding” of Dani Alves “linked to the high sentence that may be imposed on him in this case”, the “severe indications incriminating him and his “enormous financial means which could allow him to leave Spain at any time”. Without aggravating circumstances, the player faces a sentence of up to 12 years in prison.
Dani Alves, who was then under contract with the Mexican club Pumas, is accused by a young woman of having raped her at the end of December in the toilets of a fashionable nightclub in Barcelona.
He has been incarcerated since January 20 in the Brians prison complex, about forty kilometers from Barcelona.
In an interview published a week after the rejection of his second request for release which sparked an outcry in Spain, the player said he had “a really clear conscience about what happened that night in the toilets of the VIP area of ??the Sutton nightclub”.
One of the most successful footballers in history, Alves had the most glorious period of his career at Barça, between 2008 and 2016, where he won 23 trophies. He also played for Juventus Turin and Paris Saint-Germain.
