Being a good player on the pitch, not missing training and that the footballer’s pass pays for the club to continue billing millions is the only thing that matters. Even more so if you are about to win a championship. It seems that the players have more or less impunity depending on how much they are serving the club. If in one of the most important football teams in the country there is a rapist, who is even preceded by a complaint for gender violence, most likely the club’s leadership and the Argentine Football Association will look the other way, celebrate their goals and continue playing even when there is strong evidence to incriminate him.
Sebastián Villa is a 26-year-old Colombian soccer player who plays for the Boca Juniors team of the Argentine Professional League. On May 13, her girlfriend told the Justice that on June 26 of last year the soccer player tried to hang her and then sexually abused her. The complaint states that when the doctors received her, she was in a state of shock, she was “afraid” and she was “paralyzed.” Today the case in charge of the UFI No. 3 of Esteban Echeverría investigates the soccer player for the crime of sexual abuse with carnal access but does not include the “attempted homicide”.
Appealing to plain and simple punitivism, as expressed many times by the feminist movement, is not the solution because we continue counting rapes, femicides and transvesticides even when the penalties are getting higher and higher. There is no asking for revenge either. While Justice acts, what we demand from feminisms is respect towards the complainant who is exposing herself in front of a Justice (historically patriarchal) with all that implies accusing a man who is in a situation of power. A clear positioning is required, which serves as an example for society. That complaints are not taken lightly and that the protocols for action in cases of violence are complied with.
“I think that the leadership of Boca took the attitude that most clubs or all clubs take, in these cases, which is that the sports issue prevails over the particular issue. In this case, Villa charged, but using the presumption of innocence as a worker, he can play soccer, so all that aspect is given importance for everything it generates, for the interests, for the instances in which Boca is playing . The dangerous thing is the resonance box that is football and an institution with such a massive arrival. That the person in charge comes out to say we don’t care what happens off the field, it is dangerous because it minimizes a problem that is very serious, that crosses all areas of life, that is gender violence and that it is a social problem It’s not a women’s problem”, reflects Mónica Santino, a reference in women’s football and technical director of Club La Nuestra.
That the leaders of the clubs say that a player is a good professional and if he kills or rapes off the field is something else, it pushes back a thousand squares the fight that feminisms have been giving to eradicate sexist violence.
Why, when a soccer player exercises sexist violence, should his personal life be separated from his professional activity, and when it comes to other people, not? Boca decided that everything should continue as normal, but other clubs set the example. Manchester City of England expelled Benjamin Mendy in December 2021 who accumulated seven complaints of rape. In January of this year the Manchester United player, Mason Greenwood, was arrested accused by his former partner of rape and sexual assault. He is on probation and the club decided to suspend him until his trial in June.
A week ago, the justice notified Boca Juniors about the complaint against Villa to activate a protocol on gender violence in the club, just after that notice, Boca issued a statement explaining that the Department of Inclusion and Equality of the The club will refer the accused to an Interdisciplinary Team of Professionals who will prepare a risk report with recommendations to be resolved by the board of directors. So succinct. In this sense, Santino assures: “This type of decision remains in a place of total inaction and disables the gender areas and the protocols of gender violence that were proclaimed and made strong, especially at the time when the ball was stopped. in a pandemic as something that the clubs cared about and here it is clear that decisions are made at a very closed small table and that in this relationship of forces the gender areas are completely left out.”
“The wolf will always be bad if the one who tells the story is Little Red Riding Hood,” Villa wrote on her Instagram account on her birthday, not only accusing the complainant of being a liar, but also daring to make fun of her, even when there is a conversation of WhatsApp between them where he excuses the blows he gave him with a “I drank a lot, excuse me”.
Justice advances, Boca retreats
Last Tuesday, the prosecutors Vanesa González and Verónica Pérez, in charge of the case, summoned the doctor who treated the complainant at the Penna Hospital to testify, the day after the reported rape. The complainant reported that, when she was treated, the professional told her that she had injuries consistent with sexual abuse. However, this was not recorded in the clinical history. The doctor in her statement said that she does not remember having treated Sebastián Villa’s complainant despite the fact that her signature appears in the medical record. In any case, the psychiatric tests carried out on the complainant are key and clear: the report from the Public Prosecutor’s Office stated that the woman presents “indicators of sexual abuse” and that there are no traces of “fabulation or mendacity.” Which means that for forensic psychiatrists, the complainant is telling the truth.
The judge of Guarantees 2 of Lomas de Zamora, Javier Maffucci Moore, issued a precautionary measure that includes a perimeter restriction and an impediment for Villa to contact the complainant. The soccer player already has a ban on leaving the country, a measure that the justice system imposed on his former partner last year for a previous case of gender-based violence.
The current president of the club Román Riquelme said about the case: “Villa continues to maintain his level and as a professional we have not missed a single training session in two and a half years. What happens outside the court is something else. What happens in your private life is none of our business. Football is one thing and the other topic is something different. When they tell us what happened, when everything is clear, the club will take the measures it has to take. But we cannot do anything until the Justice dictates its sentence.” Riquelme’s words speak of a total indifference towards the problem of sexist violence and it is of great irresponsibility when they come from the mouth of a leader with an enormous social reach.
The level of irresponsibility increases if we take into account that this is not the first time that Villa has been denounced, in April 2020 his ex-partner, Daniela Cortés, denounced for injuries and threats, the case has already been brought to trial and could be resolved in an abbreviated process . The prosecution proposed a suspended sentence of two years in prison and now the defense must decide if they reach an agreement to avoid the oral trial.
Thus, while the club fills its mouth saying that they are respectful of the complainant and that they act in accordance with the due process of presumption of innocence, they give the player impunity. “There are many compañeras who are interested in the democratization of the clubs and in these issues being taken as they should be taken. There is a power struggle there, it is clear that the clubs are bastions of the patriarchy where the gaze on women is still very objectified and especially when you make a tour of the media that cover sports. There are very sexist expressions exacerbated, putting the problem in the victim and not in the perpetrator. We believe that a radical change is needed from how a footballer is trained and what messages are sent from sport regarding a problem that is pressing, that leaves women dead every day in the country and with everything that football represents because women we play, we think about football, we go to the field, we love our teams and it is time that we are not left out”, concludes Santino.
