E-Paper
Robinho, Dani Alves expose the ugly side of the beautiful game
High-profile footballers Dani Alves and Robinho face legal battles over rape allegations, raising questions about accountability in the sport.
In the last few hours, two eye-catching court rulings have come about in the world of football.
First, Brazilian footballer Dani Alves, who was sentenced to four and a half years in jail for rape last month, according to a Spanish court, can now be freed on a $1.1 million bail. The 40-year-old, who made his name as a right back, was convicted of raping a woman in a nightclub in Barcelona in December 2022. Alves has been in pre-trial detention since January 2023 and has served almost a quarter of his sentence.
Second, another former Brazilian footballer Robinho has been asked by a Brazilian court to serve a nine-year sentence in jail in his country. The forward was convicted of participating in a gang rape in Italy when he was playing for AC Milan in 2013. He was found guilty in 2017 and sentenced to nine years by an Italian court. As he has been living in Brazil since 2016, he couldn't be arrested in Italy and the South American country doesn't extradite its nationals.
Alves and Robinho have been big names in the football world over the years. Alves has played for Barcelona, Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain and featured in 126 matches for the Brazil national team. Robinho, on the other hand, has played for important clubs like Real Madrid, Manchester City and AC Milan and has represented his national team on 100 occasions.
The question is: why is football, compared to other sports, plagued most by rape allegations? Every other day, one comes across a story where a footballer is accused of one sexual misdemeanour or another.
According to a BBC Sport report which came out in late November last year, there were seven Premier League clubs which had either their players or bosses investigated for sexual offences since 2020. Shockingly, the report added, there were two footballers and a boss who were still performing their professional duties despite being under police investigation.
Cristiano Ronaldo, who needs no introduction at all, too has been embroiled in a rape case for a long time. Although the case has been dismissed against him, it continues to haunt him in one way or the other. A woman named Kathryn Mayorga claims that the footballer, one of the greatest of all time, sexually assaulted her in 2009 in Las Vegas and later paid her hush money.
Now the question comes: why are the football authorities the world over doing nothing about it? And if they are doing something, then why is there no decrease in the number of offences? It's true footballers can be falsely accused. That they can be trapped into awkward situations. They are the most worshipped athletes on the planet and their celebrity can be exploited by certain people.
But then somebody has to teach them what the world is like outside football and the precautions they must exercise.
Then of course, there have been convictions - like those of Alves and Robinho - and footballers have been found guilty of the crime. It wouldn't be wrong to assume they are under the impression their money and fame makes them immune to the law and its punishments. In the Alves case, the victim's lawyer made no bones about it when she said: "To me, it's a scandal that they let a person who they know can get a million euros in no time walk free." This should be taught too that no one is above the law and these crimes will destroy your career and legacy and land you in jail for many years.
Football is often called the beautiful game but these sexual offences bring a lot of disrepute to it, and they are slowly turning it into the ugly game. It's high time the governing bodies did something about it. The world now is a lot more aware of these issues than it was, say, in the last century and nothing can now be swept under the carpet.
