Former Barça player Dani Alves to go on trial for alleged rape in February

Prosecutors are seeking a nine-year jail term for the former FC Barcelona full-back, and demanded he pay his alleged victim €150,000 in compensation

The 40-year-old Alves has maintained he had consensual sex with his accuser. He has been in pre-trial jail in Barcelona since January. His requests to be released on bail have been rejected because the court considered him a flight risk.

‘I have a really clear conscience regarding what happened that night in the bathroom of the VIP area of the Sutton nightclub,’ he told Barcelona-based newspaper La Vanguardia in an interview published back in June, his first since his arrest.

‘What happened and what didn’t happen. And what didn’t happen is that I forced this woman to do anything that we did,’ he said.

But when the story first broke – and before he was arrested – Alves initially said in a television interview that he denied knowing the woman who filed a police complaint against him on 2 January.

‘I was dancing and having a good time without invading anyone’s space,’ he told Antena 3 TV. ‘I don’t know who this lady is. How could I do that to a woman? No.’

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.

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

Once inside, the footballer showed a ‘violent attitude’ towards the woman, who 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.

At the time of the incident, Alves was on holiday in Barcelona after playing for Brazil at the World Cup in Qatar. After his arrest, he was sacked by his Mexican club Pumas UNAM.

In a highly successful career, Alves won 42 trophies, including three Champions Leagues with Barcelona and two Copa Americas with Brazil.

At last year’s World Cup finals in Qatar he became the oldest player to represent Brazil at football’s showpiece tournament.