Spain’s top court on Thursday found former Brazilian and Barcelona defender Dani Alves guilty of sexual assault. Dani Alves assaulted the woman in a Barcelona nightclub in 2022. The court has sentenced him to four and a half years in prison.
The court also ordered that Alves pay 150,000 euros to the victim.
“The sentence considers that it has been proven that the victim did not consent, and that there is evidence, in addition to the testimony of the plaintiff, to consider the rape proven,” the court said in a statement.
Alves had maintained that the sex was consensual. The prosecutor was seeking a nine-year prison term.
The 40-year-old former Barcelona defender was arrested in January last year and has been held on remand since.
The case has attracted significant attention, not only because of Alves’ profile. This is also because gender violence has become an increasingly dominant topic in Spain’s public discourse.
It is one of the most high-profile trials in Spain since a law passed in 2022 making consent a key element in sexual assault cases.
It also saw an increase in minimum prison time for assaults involving violence.
