Former Brazilian foreign footballer Robinho will go to jail. The former Real Madrid, AC Milan and Manchester City player was arrested on Thursday, March 21, in Santos, the town in southeastern Brazil where he lives. He will serve a nine-year criminal sentence for a gang rape in Italy, police said.
“Federal police issued an arrest warrant on Thursday night . . . against Robson de Souza,” Robinho said, Santos police said in a statement sent to Agence France-Presse (AFP). The most recent appeal seeking the remainder of the former player’s incarceration.
On Wednesday night, in Brasilia, the magistrates of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) approved by a gigantic majority of nine out of 11 votes that the former Brazilian foreigner can be imprisoned in Brazil, a resolution “with prompt effect. “
The president of the STJ, María Teresa de Assis Moura, signed on Thursday afternoon the document that includes the resolution of the highest court, which allows the sentencing of Santos to issue a preventive detention order.
The former international’s lawyers had filed a writ of habeas corpus with the Supreme Court to release him until all conceivable remedies were exhausted.
Robinho, 40, was sentenced to nine years in prison by an Italian court in 2017 for gang rape committed in 2013 when he was an AC Milan player. He had already returned to Brazil at the time of the trial. The sentence was upheld by the Italian court. Court of Cassation in January 2022.
As Brazil’s letter allows for the extradition of its nationals, the Italian judiciary demanded that Robinho serve his sentence in his home country, a request accepted through the STJ on Wednesday.
The former 100-a-cap striker has maintained his innocence and has claimed he had a “consensual” date with the victim, a 23-year-old Albanian woman, at a Milan nightclub.
On Thursday, Leila Pereira, president of Brazilian club Palmeiras, criticized the silence of soccer’s governing bodies in relation to the two main rape cases involving soccer stars in Brazil, Robinho and former full-back Daniel Alves, who is jailed in Spain.
“No one says Array. Es as a slap in the face to all of us,” said one of the few women to run a top-tier club in the world.
Trained at Santos, like Pelé, Robinho played for big European clubs, such as Real Madrid, AC Milan or Manchester City, but his career never reached the heights he expected.
He ended it in 2020, after a last-ditch attempt to return to Santos, with his contract terminated before he even played again, under pressure from fans and sponsors following his rape conviction in Italy.