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The former Superstar of Barcelona, Dani Alves, won his appeal against a sentence for sexual aggression when a Spanish court annulled the ruling.
Alves was convicted in February 2024 to violate a woman in a nightclub in December 2022 and sentenced to four years, six months in prison.
The former defender of Brazil and Barcelona denied having acted badly during the three -day trial.
That court ruled on Friday that there was “insufficient evidence” to rule out Alves’s presumption of innocence.
“Dani Alves is innocent, and that has been tested,” said defense lawyer Ines Guardiola to Catalan Radio Rac1. “Justice has finally been attended.”
Alves’s trial was the first high profile case since Spain reviewed its laws in 2022 to make consent central to define a sexual crime in response to an increase in protests after a case of group rape during the Running Bull-Running Festival of San Fermin in Pamplona in 2016.
The legislation popularly known as the law “only means yes” defines consent as an explicit expression of a person’s will, making it clear that silence or passivity are not equal to consent.
But the four judges of a Court of Appeals based in Barcelona unanimously ruled to revoke the conviction after reviewing the evidence and testimonies granted to the lower court.
In their ruling, they wrote that the testimony of the plaintiff “differ significantly” from the evidence of video images taken before the woman and Alves entered the bathroom where she said that she forced her to have sex without her consent.
Alves, now 41 years old, remained in jail from January 20, 2023 until March 2024 until he was released after paying a million euros for the bond while waiting for his appeal.
Alves was one of the most successful players in his generation, won three champions leagues and six Spanish league titles when he was in Barcelona, while helping Brazil winning two Americas and an Olympic gold.
He was with the Mexican club Pumas when he was arrested and his contract terminated immediately.
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