Brazil and Barcelona great Dani Alves won his appeal against a sexual assault conviction as a Spanish court overturned the ruling Friday. That court ruled Friday that there was insufficient evidence to rule out Alves' presumption of innocence.
41-year-old Alves was found guilty in February 2024 of raping a woman in a nightclub in December 2022 and sentenced to four years, six months in prison. He denied wrongdoing during the three-day trial.
The former Juventus right-back was released from prison in March 2024 while waiting for his appeal to be heard by a higher court.
According to the Associated Press, The Alves trial was the first high-profile case since Spain overhauled its laws in 2022 to make consent central to defining a sex crime in response to an upswell of protests after a gang-rape case during the San Fermin bull-running festival in Pamplona in 2016.
Dani Alves rape case
On the night of the incident, Dani Alves in the company of a friend, bought champagne for three young women at a Barcelona night club and reportedly lured one of them to a VIP area of the nightclub with a toilet. The prosecutors maintain that the woman had no idea about the premises and things turned violent. Alves was accused of forcing the woman to have sex despite her repeated requests to leave. When the matter reached the court, Dani Alves maintained she could have left "if she wanted to". However, the court found that she did not consent.
Dani Alves conviction
In 2022, Alves had agreed to pay the survivor €150,000 (£128,500) in damages regardless of the outcome of the trial when it decided on the length of his prison term.
The legislation popularly known as the “only yes means yes” law defines consent as an explicit expression of a person’s will, making it clear that silence or passivity do not equal consent.
But the four judges of a Barcelona-based appeals court ruled unanimously to overturn the conviction. In their ruling, they wrote that the testimony of the plaintiff “differed notably” from evidence of video footage taken before the woman and Alves entered the bathroom where she said he forced her to have sex without her consent.
Alves won six La Ligas, three Champions Leagues, four Copa del Reys and three Club World Cups with the Catalan giants.
