Joana Sanz
is a Spanish model and, since July 2017, the wife of Brazilian soccer player
Dani Alves
, who was arrested for sexual abuse in Barcelona.
They were together in Spain because her mother had died a few days before from an untreated tumor in the uterus because she suffered from a mental illness.
In the midst of a very difficult duel, Sanz saw her husband taken to prison accused by a woman of having raped her in the bathroom of a dance venue in Barcelona on December 30.
And in the last few hours, through her Instagram account,
she published a heartbreaking message to ask for "empathy" and "respect"
, fundamentally, to the
paparazzi
who stand guard at the door of her house.
“I ask the media outside my house to please respect my privacy at this time.
My mother has passed away a week ago,
I have barely begun to assume that she is no longer there to be tormented with my husband's situation,
"she asked.
"
I have lost the only two pillars of my life, have a little empathy instead of looking for so much news in other people's pain
. Thank you," he wrote in a story on the social network where he has 756,000 followers.
Joana Sanz's message, Dani Alves' wife, on her Instagram account.
Dani Alves, in jail and without bail
The Brazilian soccer player was detained this Friday in
the Brians 1 prison, half an hour from the center of Barcelona,
for the alleged rape, on December 30, of a woman at the Sutton nightclub in that Catalan city.
The judge investigating the case determined
provisional detention without bail
for the former Barcelona winger, who denied having had sexual relations with the young complainant, a story that does not agree with the evidence (biological traces and traces) analyzed by the Mossos d'Esquadra , the police of Catalonia.
The young woman's statement, on the contrary, has been coherent and solid, according to judicial sources mentioned by the newspaper El País.
The soccer player allegedly
committed the assault on the night of December 30 at the Sutton nightclub and, a few hours later, he returned to Mexico to play with the Pumas
.
The 23-year-old victim denounced Alves on January 2 for non-consensual touching.
With the new classification of the crime, the term sexual abuse for behaviors such as touching has been eliminated from the Spanish Penal Code, and everything has been included in the term
sexual assault
.
This is how Dani Alves was taken to jail after his statement, in a Mossos d'Esquadra vehicle.
Photo EFE/ Enric Fontcuberta
After appearing at the Barcelona police station where he had been summoned, the player was arrested and went to court.
To the request for entry into pretrial detention by the prosecutor's office, the private prosecution, exercised by the complainant, was added.
The investigating judge must now decide if she orders the footballer to be imprisoned.
Alves, 39,
admitted to having been in the disco that day
, but from the beginning he denied having assaulted the woman who denounced him:
"When you choose to go to the bathroom, you don't have to ask who is in the bathroom to be able to go to the bathroom he said
.
He also stated:
"
I was there, in that place, with more people enjoying themselves.
Without invading the space of others. I don't know who that lady is
. "
Dani Alves was left without a club: Pumas de México broke the contract
The board of directors of the club that Dani Alves joined
on July 21, after not renewing his contract with Barcelona,
announced that he had terminated the contract he had with the Brazilian star, considering it "unsustainable" after he was jailed in Barcelona accused of sexual assault. against a woman.
In a statement, the team owned by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) said that the player "has ceased to belong" to the team due to his problems with the law, which caused a huge surprise among fans.
The decision is due to the team's "commitment" to "not tolerate acts by any member of the institution, whoever they may be, that
go against the university spirit and its values
."
Dani Alves had played against Juárez FC for matchday 1 of the Liga MX Clausura 2023 tournament on January 8.
Photo EFE/Isaac Esquivel
Leopoldo Silva, president of the club, said that Pumas is "an institution that promotes respect and upright, dignified and professional behavior
on and off the field
of its players" and cannot "allow the conduct of a person harm our work philosophy".
The team had granted
Alves permission to travel to Barcelona last week to attend his mother-in-law's funeral
but was caught off guard by the 39-year-old's sudden arrest.
look too
Xavi Hernández, shocked by the arrest of Dani Alves in Barcelona: "I am in shock"
Dani Alves, from bad to worse: Pumas terminated his contract after the rape complaint
Dani Alves, increasingly complicated: goes to jail for rape complaint
