In this last year, the one in which he has been locked up in a cell in
Barcelona
accused of having raped a 23-year-old girl,
Dani Alves
lost everything.
The former Brazilian full-back, who until August of last year - when Leo Messi equaled him - was the player who had won the most cups in the history of football, was left
without million-dollar contracts and was orphaned by a good part of his family,
who no longer supports him today. accompanies
In provisional prison - and without bail - since January 20 of last year, Alves burns the hours in module 13 of the Brians II prison in Catalonia, discounting the days remaining until his trial.
The former Sevilla and Barça player will be tried in section 21 of the Barcelona Court,
between February 5 and 7
.
For the alleged sexual assault in a bathroom in a booth at the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona, the Prosecutor's Office is asking for a sentence of 9 years in prison.
For the defense of the girl who reported him, the penalty should be greater: Dani Alves should serve 12 years in prison.
More serene than a year ago, when he arrived at the prison and hardly ate or watched television, the former captain of Brazil in the last World Cup - Qatar '22 -
today is adapted to prison routine
.
He turned 40 behind bars and even spread his passion for football to his fellow students,
all of whom were convicted of sexual crimes
.
An image of the entrance to the prison where Dani Alves is held.
Photo: Josep LAGO / AFP.
A year ago, almost no one played sports among the inmates of module 13 of Brians II.
Today everyone plays soccer or volleyball.
Alves himself told it in
the only interview he gave
, for now, from prison to a Spanish media outlet, the Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia, in June of last year.
There he covered, once again,
one of the many stories - five, to date -
about what happened in the early hours of December 31, 2022 in the booth on the first floor of the Sutton disco, on Carrer de Tuset in Barcelona.
“If that night they tell me that a young woman accuses me of rape, I go to the police station,” Alves told La Vanguardia.
Six months earlier, as soon as the complaint broke, the then Mexico Pumas player had sent a video to a Spanish television channel, Antena 3, ensuring
that he had never seen the girl who reported him
.
This is Dani Alves's cell at the Brians 2 Penitentiary Center in Catalonia.
“I was in that place, enjoying it, but without invading the space of others.
I don't know who that lady is.
“I don’t know her, I don’t know her name,” she said.
But while the evidence from the disco cameras and the genetic material tests that the girl provided from the stained dress she was wearing that night metamorphosed Alves' versions, the foreigner who played the most games for Barça after Messi was losing
millions
.
The first were those he had agreed to for a one-year contract to play for the Pumas of the University of Mexico: between 1.5 and 2 million dollars seasoned with percentages for advertising and merchandising sales.
As soon as Alves slept in prison, the club terminated his contract and demanded compensation of five million dollars for failure to comply with the agreement.
From then on, the Brazilian only received
bad news
.
Pumas de México broke their contract with Dani Alves and demanded compensation from him.
Photo: REUTERS / Henry Romero.
Every three months he charged between 30 and 50 thousand euros for the use of his image, which disappeared.
Adidas, with whom he was due to renew his contract after the Qatar World Cup, did not want to hear from him and the sports betting company 1xPartner left the agreement with Dani Alves, who was his “ambassador”, “on hold”.
From Brazil, the insurance and financial services company Hygia Saúde discontinued its commercial relationship with the player.
The clothing brand Ethika solved the same thing.
Compensation no, compensation yes
In Spain, the Alves scandal maintained, from the beginning, the anonymity of the girl who reported having been raped by the former soccer player.
The only thing that emerged, at that time, was that the young woman waived compensation, as provided for in the Spanish Penal Code.
She just wanted her attacker to be imprisoned.
Then
she changed her mind
: today, her defense lawyer, Ester García, requests, along with the 12-year prison sentence, compensation of 150 thousand euros for the physical and psychological consequences suffered by the young woman.
His anonymity did not last either.
A few weeks ago, the former player's mother,
Maria Lucia Alves
, published a video on her social networks with images of who would be the alleged victim.
Dani Alves with Lucía, his mother.
Photo: Instagram.
In the reel you can see scenes of a young woman dancing with friends, images that Alves' mother contrasted with paragraphs from journalistic reports that point out the trauma she experienced after the sexual assault.
The Catalan Prosecutor's Office is studying the video that was reported by lawyer García.
“The identification of a victim of sexual violence constitutes a flagrant crime,” she argued.
Alves' defense
In one year, Dani Alves gave five different versions of what happened that night in 2022 and changed his defense lawyer three times.
He went from denying everything to admitting that he had consensual sex with the young woman who reported him.
Clarín
contacted the studio that defends him today.
The founder is Inés Guardiola, a well-known lawyer in Catalonia.
“For now she is not going to make statements,” said her secretary.
Guardiola's last move was to present a brief, three weeks before the start of the trial, arguing
that Dani Alves was drunk that night
at the Sutton nightclub.
If found guilty, having acted under the influence of alcohol and with his faculties clouded by drunkenness could mitigate the sentence.
I love you I hate you
Dani Alves's personal life was also
shattered
.
Days after her arrest, the Spanish model
Joana Sanz
, who in 2017 married the Brazilian on the dream island of Formentera, published a handwritten letter in which she announced her separation from Alves.
He even asked for a divorce
but Dani denied it
.
Alves and Joana Sanz married in 2017.
Joana stopped visiting him frequently in Brians II.
In November, in a television program, she confessed: “I am still there for him and I will continue to be there forever, the future will tell.
“We continue talking on the phone as if nothing is happening, we support each other as best we can.”
The latest news about the case: Joana is going to be present at the trial and will give a statement.
Family strategy
Alves's first wife,
Dinorah
Santana
, believed in his innocence.
“One hundred percent and I have no doubts,” she even said on Spanish television.
He even announced that he was moving from Brazil to Barcelona with the children he had with the former player, two teenagers aged 16 and 15, to be close and support him.
It was part of Alves' defense strategy that requested, once again, the
release
of the former footballer.
If the Spanish justice system verified that his children had roots in Spain and that there was no danger of flight - the fear was that he would take refuge in Brazil, a country that does not extradite its citizens even if they have committed crimes abroad - they could release him. conditional until trial.
Dani Alves participated in the World Cup in Qatar and a few weeks later he was arrested.
Dani Alves, however, never obtained permission to be released.
Then,
his first wife felt used
.
“They asked us to move and we were going to move.
I have looked for a school (for his children).
We had been in jail and then they immediately denied him parole.
And he disappeared.
It was just like that,” Dinorah said, furious.
Overnight, precisely from December 30 to 31, 2022, the Brazilian that world football loved fell into the void from the peak that only idols enjoy.
He only has to tell, before a court,
what really happened that morning.