The family of footballer Neymar reportedly assisted Dani Alves in paying a £128,000 fine related to his rape case, a contribution that played a significant role in mitigating the sentence handed to the former Barcelona defender.
Alves, aged 40, was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison on Thursday, February 22, following his conviction for raping a woman at a Spanish nightclub. He had been held on remand at Brians 2 Prison near the Catalan capital since his arrest in January 2023.
While state prosecutors sought a nine-year jail term and the victim’s lawyer demanded a 12-year sentence, a ‘mitigating factor’ in Alves’s sentencing was a pre-payment of the £128,000 (€150,000) he was ordered to provide to his victim as compensation. The Brazilian outlet UOL reported that Neymar’s family, who had previously played alongside Alves at Barcelona, PSG, and the Brazilian national team, allegedly contributed to the payment.
Additionally, Neymar’s family reportedly provided legal support through Gustavo Xisto, one of the senior legal representatives of Neymar’s father, to assist Alves in the case.
Alves, whose lawyer confirmed plans to appeal the sentencing, maintained his innocence during his trial at Barcelona’s Audiencia Provincial court on February 7. The time Alves spent on remand in prison will also count towards his overall sentence.
In addition to imprisonment and the compensation payment, Alves was handed a five-year parole period and a nine-and-a-half year restraining order prohibiting contact with the victim or proximity to her.
The victim, a 23-year-old woman, testified in court that Alves had forced himself on her after hitting her. Despite Alves claiming the encounter was consensual, the judges found that he had used physical force to overpower the victim and commit the rape.
The judges concluded that the victim’s initial intimacy with Alves did not imply consent for subsequent sexual activity. They emphasized that consent must be given before or during sexual intercourse, and that the victim’s inability to leave the situation due to Alves’s violent behavior negated any consent that may have been implied earlier in the evening.