Accused of the rape of a young woman, the former star of FC Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain, Dani Alves, who says he is innocent, saw his trial end on the evening of Wednesday February 7, pending the judges’ verdict which could take several weeks. The former Brazilian international, against whom the prosecution requested nine years in prison, claimed to have had a consensual sexual relationship and refuted any form of violence against the complainant during his final testimony.
This version did not convince the prosecutor, who concluded her indictment by considering that the complainant, who testified Monday in camera, had presented an “absolutely credible story” since the start of the investigation, and that Dani Alves had showed “violence” towards the young woman. She accuses him of having raped her in the toilets of a VIP room at the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona, on the night of December 30 to 31, 2022.
Handcuffed, dressed in a white sweater and wearing glasses, the 40-year-old ex-player defended himself by asserting that the complainant had “at no time (…) said anything” to get away with it. go. “If she wanted to leave, she could leave at any time, she didn’t have to be there,” the former right-back added, saying he was “not a violent man.”
Request for nine years in prison
In pre-trial detention for a little over a year, he has contested the facts since the start of the case, but his defense has been weakened by his numerous changes of version. After claiming in a video at the beginning of January 2023 that he had never met the complainant, he justified his lie by explaining that he wanted to protect his marriage, before ending up admitting a sexual relationship with the complainant, according to him, consensual.
At the end of the trial, the public prosecutor maintained its demands: nine years in prison for the footballer, as well as the payment of 150,000 euros to the young woman and ten years of supervised release after his release from prison.
“If at any point [the woman] says ‘no further’, it’s ‘no further’. Mr. Alves cannot continue if the victim does not give consent,” underlined the prosecutor, who considered that the young woman had “done what she could”.
Alves’ lawyer, for her part, requested the acquittal of her client, defending that he could not “know that the complainant had withdrawn her consent”.
According to the indictment, Alves, who was then in Barcelona after participating in the World Cup in Qatar, was in this nightclub with a friend. After offering champagne to the complainant, her cousin and a friend, he allegedly invited her to dance, then to accompany him to an adjoining room with a toilet. Alves would then have forced her to have sexual relations, according to the prosecution, which describes a “situation of anxiety and terror” for the young woman.
Symptoms of post-traumatic syndrome
This version was corroborated on Monday by the complainant’s friend and cousin. She was “crying desperately” and wanted to leave the nightclub, saying that Alves had done her “a lot of harm,” her friend said. According to the cousin, the young woman “barely leaves the house” since the attack and takes antidepressants.
For her part, the complainant testified Monday behind closed doors to protect her identity, sheltered behind a screen to avoid any visual contact with Alves. His voice had been altered and his face pixelated on the recording, intended for the exclusive use of judges, in case it leaked. On Wednesday, a psychologist who saw the victim months after the incident confirmed that she had symptoms of post-traumatic syndrome.
The friend who accompanied Alves during this evening, as well as the player’s wife, had, for their part, insisted on Tuesday on the state of intoxication of the accused. He “smelled of alcohol” and “when he entered the bedroom, he bumped into several pieces of furniture and collapsed on the bed” before falling asleep, Joana Sanz said.
One of the most successful footballers in history, Dani Alves enjoyed the most glorious period of his career at Barcelona, between 2008 and 2016, where he won twenty-three trophies. The player, who also played for Sevilla (Spain), Juventus Turin (Italy) and Paris Saint-Germain, was playing for the Mexican club Pumas at the time of his incarceration. This club, with which he was under contract until the end of last season, then immediately fired him.