Football player Dani Alves begins his rape trial in Barcelona

Former Barcelona and PSG player Dani Alves, a Brazilian football player, is on trial in Barcelona on Monday for allegedly raping a woman in a neighborhood nightclub. The requested punishment from the prosecution is nine years in jail, with an additional ten years of conditional release. They also want him to reimburse the woman with 150,000 euros ($162,000). The trial is set to conclude on Wednesday at 9 a.m. GMT. The lady accused the 40-year-old former Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain defender of raping her in the VIP area of the premium Sutton nightclub in Barcelona in the early hours of December 31, 2022, led to his arrest in January 2023. Since then, he has been detained.

In a television appearance, Alves first denied knowing the woman, but now he says they had consensual intercourse.

The prosecution claims that Alves, who was on vacation in Barcelona at the time after representing Brazil in the World Cup in Qatar, gave the young lady and her companion a glass of champagne.
The lady claims that Alves then asked her to enter a tiny cage at the nightclub, which she was unaware was a restroom.
Prosecutors claim that while inside, the football player adopted a “violent attitude” and coerced her into having sex against her will, as stated in the indictment.

Per the accusation, the young woman was placed in a “situation of anguish and terror” and repeatedly urged him to let her go, indicating she wanted to leave but the defendant blocked her from doing so.
Prosecutors claim the woman is receiving therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder after obtaining medical attention following her exit from the nightclub.
Although the public and media will not be present when the accuser takes the stand, Alves’ legal team lost the fight to keep the trial behind closed doors. Her real name has never been made public.

In June, Alves told the Barcelona-based daily La Vanguardia that he had first lied about knowing his accuser out of fear that his wife would divorce him if he came clean about his relationship with another woman.

Alves’s request to be released until his trial has been repeatedly denied by Spanish judges, who have cited his flight danger to Brazil—a country that seldom extradites its nationals.
In Spain, a plea agreement can be reached up until the beginning of the trial, thus Alves could still confess to the crime in exchange for a less sentence.
In November, the accuser’s attorney acknowledged that “talks” had taken place, but disputed that she had come to any such understanding.
Over the course of his illustrious career, Alves won 42 trophies, including three Champions Leagues with Barcelona and two Copa America titles with Brazil.
His playing career peaked between 2008 and 2016, when he won 23 trophies while with Barcelona.