Former Brazil and Manchester City winger Robinho will reportedly serve a nine-year prison sentence for gang rape in his home country after being found guilty in Italy in 2017.
According to Globo, Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice (BSCJ) issued the unprecedented decision on Wednesday, after Italian authorities’ request to extradite the 40-year-old in 2022.
The former Premier League footballer, whose actual name is Robson De Souza, was among six men convicted of beating an Albanian woman in an Italian nightclub in January 2013.
In January 2022, the Supreme Court of Rome dismissed his final appeal against the conviction.
Robinho claims he is innocent of the allegations and has been living in Brazil for the past seven years.
The verdict came after nine of the court’s 15 ministers had voted in favour of the decision to incarcerate the footballer in Brazil.
According to the source, his legal team will ‘appeal to the BSCJ and the Federal Supreme Court.’
Globo further believes that the former footballer, who also played for AC Milan and Real Madrid, will be detained in Santos, where he presently resides.
The Brazilian constitution does not generally allow for the extradition of native criminals. He could have been arrested if he had gone outside of Brazil.
Robinho, who was 28 years old and played for AC Milan at the time, admitted to having ‘contact’ with the woman during his appeal but argued it was consensual.
In December 2020, the Milan Court of Appeals upheld Robinho’s initial sentence, finding that he had ‘belittled’ and ‘brutally humiliated’ his victim.
Intercepted phone calls between the Brazilian and others accused of the attack served as important evidence in his original conviction.
Robinho had said, ‘It makes me laugh because I’m not interested; the woman was drunk; she doesn’t even know what happened.’
However, due to public outrage over his signing, he was compelled to terminate the deal, and a key sponsor withdrew sponsorship for the football team.
The winger came through the Santos programme and was regarded as one of Brazil’s rising prospects.
Throughout his playing career, he played 137 matches for Real Madrid, 53 for Manchester City, and 144 for AC Milan. He also made 100 appearances for the Brazilian national team.
