- Ex-Man City forward Robinho was found guilty of gang rape in Italy back in 2017
- Italian prosecutors had demanded that he be extradited to serve his sentence
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Former Brazil and Manchester City winger Robinho will reportedly serve a nine-year jail sentence for gang rape in his home country after he was found guilty in Italy in 2017.
Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice (BSCJ), according to Globo, came to the landmark judgement on Wednesday after Italian authorities had asked to extradite the 40-year-old in 2022.
The former Premier League player, who’s real name is Robson De Souza, was one of six men who were found guilty of assaulting an Albanian woman in an Italian nightclub in January 2013.
In January 2022, the Supreme Court in Rome dismissed his final appeal against the conviction.
Robinho claims he is innocent and has been living in Brazil for the past seven years.
It came after nine of the court’s 15 ministers had voted in favour of the decision to incarcerate the footballer in Brazil.
The outlet reports that his legal representatives will ‘appeal to the BSCJ and to the Federal Supreme Court.’
Globo also claims that the ex-footballer, who also spent time at AC Milan and Real Madrid, will now be arrested in Santos, where he currently resides.
The Brazilian constitution does normally not normally permit the extraditions of native criminals. He could have faced arrest if he had travelled outside of Brazil.
Robinho, who was 28 and was playing for AC Milan at the time, admitted during his appeal to having ‘contact’ with the woman, but the Brazilian insisted it was consensual.
The Milan Court of Appeals found Robinho had ‘belittled’ and ‘brutally humiliated’ the victim as it upheld his original sentence in December 2020.
Intercepted phone calls between the Brazilian and those allegedly involved in the assault were used as key evidence in his initial conviction.
Robinho had said: ‘It makes me laugh because I’m not interested, the woman was drunk, she doesn’t even know what happened.’
The forward had secured a transfer back to Santos in 2020 where he was handed a contract that was worth minimum wage.
But he was forced to tear up the contract amid outcry over his signing, with a major sponsor pulling its support for the football club.
The winger came through the Santos academy where he was seen as one of Brazil’s rising stars.
He would go on to play 137 matches for Real Madrid, 53 for Man City and 144 for AC Milan during his playing career. He also made 100 appearances for the Brazil national side.
Olivia Martin is a dedicated sports journalist based in the UK. With a passion for various athletic disciplines, she covers everything from major league championships to local sports events, delivering up-to-the-minute updates and in-depth analysis.
