Former Barcelona and Brazil legend, Dani Alves might be sentenced to nine years in prison if he is found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman in a nightclub in Spain.
According to Sports Mail, the EFE news agency reported that prosecutors are pushing for that sentence, as well as £130,000 in damages and 10 years of probation, as the case finally reached the trial stage in Spain.
Alves, aged 40, was arrested on January 20 and has been held in a prison outside Barcelona.
The former Sevilla, Juventus, and Paris Saint-Germain defender denies any wrongdoing and claims it was consensual.
He was ordered to stand trial earlier this month, having changed his testimony on four occasions.
Alves was denied bail by judges back in January after his arrest for the alleged sexual assault in the bathroom of the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona on December 30.
He was playing for the Mexican club UNAM at the time, and judges believed Alves was a flight risk. UNAM subsequently terminated his contract.
Alves stated previously, ‘It will be proven that I am not guilty and it was a consensual relationship. It would never cross my mind to impose a sexual act on anyone.’
His wife, model Joana Sanz, seemed to confirm she had split from the footballer in a social media post dated March 15. In a handwritten letter, she said ‘it will take years to erase from my memory his way of looking at me’ and ‘here is a strong woman moving on to the next stage of her life.’
