Former Barcelona and Brazil full-back Dani Alves has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison for the sexual assault of a woman in a nightclub.
Alves, 40, denied the charge but was found guilty by a three-judge panel at the Provincial Court of Barcelona.
He was also ordered to pay €150,000 (£128,500) to the victim.
The sentence is less than the prosecution demanded (the maximum sentence of 12 years) and less than the Prosecutor’s Office had requested (nine years).
The offence took place in the early hours of December 31, 2022 with Alves found to have lured the woman to a toilet at Sutton nightclub in the Catalan capital. His defence was that she could have left “if she’d wanted to” but the court ruled she had not given consent to any sexual activity.
The court also ruled there was evidence beyond the victim’s testimony, including injuries that provided evidence of “the existence of violence to force his will”.
Alves, who has been in jail since being detained on January 20, 2023, will appeal the sentence, according to his lawyer Ines Guardiola, who said: “Four years and six months is better than the nine and 12 that the prosecution requested but I believe in Alves’ innocence and we are going to appeal.”
The Brazilian is one of the most decorated footballers of his generation. He won 23 major titles with Barca between 2008 and 2016 before returning for a short spell in the 2021-22 season.
He also claimed silverware with Sevilla, Juventus, Paris Saint-Germain as well as Brazil with whom he twice won the Copa America and the 2000 Olympics.
