AS his sentence was read, Dani Alves bowed his head in shame in a Barcelona court.
Following a three-day trial this month, the Brazil legend has been found guilty of sexually assaulting a young woman.
He faces four years, six months behind bars, although he plans to appeal the decision.
The ex-Barcelona star, a serial winner on the football pitch with 44 medals to his name, saw his life unravel after he was arrested by Catalan police in January 2023, and has been behind bars ever since.
Two months after his arrest, his model wife Joana Sanz left him – admitting he had left her suicidal and that she wanted to “close this chapter of her life”.
Alves’ fall from grace comes after one of the most storied career’s teh game has ever seen.
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Trophy haul
Only Lionel Messi has as many medals to his name as Alves, who is now 40 years old.
He was signed from Sevilla by Pep Guardiola in 2008 – costing a record £30million, and would play in a Barcelona side that would dominate the Spanish and European football landscape.
In his debut season, he suffered heartbreak when he was suspended from the Champions League final against Manchester United.
His absence didn’t matter, as the Catalans recorded a 2-0 win and completed a treble.
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Alves would go on to win two more Champions League titles (in 2011 and 2015), before leaving the club in 2016.
During his eight-year stay in Catalonia, he added six LaLiga titles, four Copa del Reys, as well as the three Super Cups and three Club World Cups to his bulging trophy cabinet.
Success continued to follow him after he departed Barcelona.
In his one and only season at Juventus, he won the Serie A title and Coppa Italia.
Then, in a two-year spell at PSG, he would win the French championship back-to-back.
Even in his veteran years at Sao Paulo, he was part of a side that won the Brazilian league in 2021.
The accolades also came with his country, Brazil. However, despite playing in three World Cups he was unable to add a winners’ medal to his CV in that tournament.
Still, famous Copa America wins in 2007 and 2019 made him a hero in his homeland.
Finally getting married
Away from the beautiful game, Alves was smitten by a beautiful woman.
In 2015, the galloping right-back fell for the charms of Tenerife-born beauty, Joanna Sanz.
The Spanish model, who made her name from the age of 17 on the catwalk for Jimmy Choo and Yves Saint Laurent and starred in ads for L’Oriel, was introduced to Alves by a mutual friend.
He wined and dined her, they went on a glam holidays, and he lavished her with expensive gifts, as the Spanish media heralded them as one of football’s superstar couples.
But, despite his attempts to get his beloved to walk down the aisle, she was initially resistant.
Joanna turned down two proposals, before finally accepting his third offer.
She told Spanish gossip magazine La Vanguardia: “Dani asked me in the hotel room alone. We do not like [putting on a show].
“It was splendid… he already asked me three times.”
The pair flew to Ibiza in 2017, and were married in a private ceremony on the island of Formantera.
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They both wore white, with Alves opting for trainers as footwear.
It was his second marriage, after divorcing first love Dinora Santana who he shares kids Victoria and Daniel with.
The beginning of the end
At the turn of last year, Alves was arrested on suspicion of rape.
The victim alleged the incident occurred at a nightclub in Barcelona in December 2022.
According to El Periódico de Catalunya, she was led to the hotspot’s VIP area by a waiter after Alves asked to meet her.
She claimed he told her to touch his penis twice, before ordering her to follow him into the nightclub’s bathroom.
There, after she asked to leave, she said he slapped her, insulted her, and tried to force her to perform a sex act on him, before pushing her into a toilet where he raped her.
According to El Periódico, semen that was collected from the victim, as well as from the nightclub’s bathroom floor was analysed and matched Alves’ DNA.
Hospital records of treatment to a knee injury sustained by the woman were consistent with her account of events.
Investigators found seven fingerprints around the bathroom that matched the complainant’s account of events, with the complainant giving her account without knowing that investigators had such evidence.
Alves’ defence
In his defence, Alves has given several accounts of what happened that evening.
He told media outlet Antena 3 he didn’t know the woman and she made up the allegation for fame.
In a second story, he said he went into the bathroom not knowing she was in it.
When CCTV contradicted that tale, he said he went into the bathroom first, defecated in the toilet with the woman beside him, but nothing sexual happened.
In another version of events, Alves said the woman performed oral sex on him in the bathroom.
At an April 2023 hearing he finally claimed he had consensual sex with the victim, when he was quizzed why his semen was found on the bathroom floor.
He confessed his previous lies were down to vain attempts in saving his crumbling marriage to Sanz, who by now had ditched him.
Alves blamed alcohol consumption for severely hampering his judgement.
Trial
The trial began earlier this month, and was the first to be held under Spain’s 2022 consensual sex law which expanded the legal definition of sexual assault in Spain.
On the first day, the Provincial Court of Barcelona rejected his bid to have the trial suspended.
The woman in question gave her testimony from behind a screen in a closed-door session, with her voice distorted to protect her identity.
On the second day, the bombshell moment came when ex-wife Sanz took to the stand for ten minutes.
She revealed how he “stank of alcohol and collapsed in bed” after arriving home from the night he was alleged to have raped the 23-year-old woman.
Catalan News described Sanz as appearing “very cold towards her husband”, and she said they hadn’t officially divorced yet.
Friends of Alves who testified claimed they drank alcohol “from lunch until dawn” on that fateful evening.
After eyewitnesses and police gave their accounts, it was Alves’ turn to defend himself.
Again, he denied any wrongdoing and insisted sexual relations between himself and the woman were consensual.
The prosecution demanded he received a nine-year sentence and the victim’s legal team asked for 12.
But a judge ruled he would serve four and a half years in prison, after finding the fallen ace guilty of rape.
What’s next?
Because he completed a year of his sentence on remand, Alves could soon be released on licence.
He has been ordered to pay £7,700 for physical damage to the victim and offered to pay compensation of £130,000 (€150,000).
But, he will be on legal supervision for five years, while a restraining order of nine years and six months will prevent him from contacting the victim.
The financial ramifications of this ordeal have left Alves, who was believed to have made a £50million fortune from his football career, allegedly bankrupt.
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Most of his money is believed to be tied up in several business investments.
A sensational reveal during the trial by his lawyers claimed that his bank balance was £17,000 overdrawn.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
