Dani Alves gets court date set for rape allegations

Former Brazil football star Dani Alves will go on trial in Spain for allegedly raping a young woman at a Barcelona nightclub in December 2022 between February 5-7, a Spanish court said Wednesday.

Prosecutors are seeking a nine-year jail term for the former Barcelona full-back, who has been in jail in Spain since his arrest in January. The 40-year-old has maintained he had consensual sex with the woman who initially filed the rape allegations suit.

Alves told La Vanguardia that he had lied at first because he was afraid his wife would leave him if he admitted he had been with another woman. The trial will take place in Barcelona, the court that has led the investigation into the affair said in a statement.

Prosecutors allege Dani Alves invited the woman to enter a small enclosure at the upscale Sutton nightclub, which she says she did not know was a lavatory.

Once inside, the footballer showed a “violent attitude” towards the woman, whom he forced to have intercourse despite her resistance, prosecutors say according to the indictment.

Under Spain’s sexual consent law passed last year, the charge of sexual assault takes in a wide array of crimes from online abuse and groping to rape, each with different possible punishments. A case of rape can carry a maximum sentence of 15 years.