The Sebastian Villa case. The reasons why the Boca leadership supports it, the strong details of the complaint and the silence of the AFA

The new complaint against Sebastián Villa generated different reactions within the Boca worldalthough they all go, at least so far, on the same page: support the footballer. Meanwhile, the prosecutor, Verónica Pérez, does not rule out a detention order against the Colombian

Protected by article 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which establishes that “every person accused of a crime has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty”, nobody in the club imagines that the footballer is marginalized from the ownership, the squad or the institution. In fact, except for a sudden movement of the rudder, this Sunday Villa will start in the final of the Professional League Cup, against Tigre.

While the president Jorge Amealopted this time for silence (“if he is guilty, you have to help him and cure him”, he had said after the first complaint), only two members of the club expressed themselves publicly. In both cases They supported the Colombian.

The first was Yamila Rodríguez, captain and scorer of the first division women’s team and the Argentine national team, who on Saturday, shortly before the semifinal between Boca and Racing, published an image on Instagram in which she is seen from behind with a Villa shirt. “Banking you always my corduroy @ sebastian14villa“, wrote. Rodríguez received strong criticism on that social network. In his clarification he said “the personal problems that the player has exclude me”.

the other was his own Juan roman riquelme, second vice president and highest authority in Boca football. “Since we have been lucky enough to arrive at the club, two and a half years ago, we have nothing but words of thanks because it has been two and a half years and he has never thrown himself on the stretcher, they have never treated him, nothing has hurt him, he has not stopped training for a single day. The truth is that we as a professional with that boy we have to take off our hat”, he praised, in statements to ESPN. And he added: “After, what happens off the pitch is another matterbut it’s wonderful to have a player who for two and a half years he did not miss a single training”.

His words are far from reality. Offended and angry because the Football Council had rejected an offer for him from Brügge, from Belgium, on July 29 Sebastián Villa took his belongings, greeted his teammates and left the Ezeiza property. Shortly after, he announced by email that he was going to Colombia.

The strategy used by those who manage his career caused the Colombian to be forced to return to the club to avoid a trial for breach of contract. As a result, Villa spent 41 days without training in Boca. He only stepped on the Ezeiza property again on September 8.

In this “new Villa case”, as found out by THE NATIONthe doctor Orlando Giménez, president of the Legal Department and member of the Board of Directors, conveyed tranquility to his peers in connection with this allegation.

Indoors, in Boca they are convinced that the new complaint has no basis and they assert that the footballer has evidence to prove it. Meanwhile, they reported: “The institution’s Inclusion and Equality department is already available for the episode involving the player Sebastián Villa and once again ratifies its total commitment in situations of gender and equality, as stated in the club’s first Protocol for action in cases of Gender-Based Violence, Gender Identity and/or Sexual Orientation, approved on August 12 by the Board of Directors Assembly.”

Point A of article 8 of that protocol states that “the complainant will receive comprehensive support throughout the preliminary proceedings by an interdisciplinary technical team formed for this purpose that is part of the Department of Inclusion and Equality.” According to that protocol, the only thing the club has to do in the first instance is to provide psychological help to the two parties involved.

Beyond that institutional position, the young woman ratified before the Justice, during a statement of more than five hours in the courts of Lomas de Zamora, all her sayings. He assures that on June 26, 2021 he was the victim of sexual abuse and threatened with death by Villa. According to the brief presented last week, she was assisted at the Penna Hospital in Buenos Aires, and explained that she did not make the complaint at the time, despite the recommendation of the doctors who treated her, because she was in shock, she suffered “fear ” and was “paralyzed”.

In statements made to various media, Dr. Roberto Castillo, the victim’s lawyer, appeared forceful: “A preventive detention for Villa can be determined. Here there are expectations of sentences of 20 years; no negotiation possible. Was attempted murder y carnal abuseand they operated to not allow the girl to go out and talk.”

A source close to Ameal on the Board of Directors stated to this newspaper: “The club has a very strong position on gender violence. When the first complaint against Villa became known, we were one step away from kicking him out. But the context of the pandemic and the absence of parties made it possible to better evaluate everything. Finally there was an agreement with the person who denounced him, and that is why he continued in the club”.

Regarding the possibility that in this case another economic agreement could be concluded in the civil jurisdiction, the complainant’s lawyer was blunt: “If there were to be an arrangement, we are telling society that anyone who has money can do what they want.. Here Villa has to serve his sentence. There is no other”.

At the courthouse door, Dr. Castillo recounted: “Rocío had to tell everything from scratch. She gave some details that we had not been able to include in the complaint. There were many hours of remembering and reliving everything that she lived through, which for her is a nightmare that fractured her psychically and emotionally”. During that testimony, Villa’s defense attorney, Martín Apolo, who also represents the player in a lawsuit, was also present. criminal case started in 2020 in what He is being investigated for gender-based violence against his ex-girlfriend, Daniela Cortéswhich will soon have the oral trial.

In relation to the complaint, Castillo explained: “We report the facts that the victim refers to. The prosecution has to frame the qualification. We prove sexual abuse through injuries and, because of the intimidation, she feared for her life. She ran out of air, she was suffocated. She felt that she ran out of air and that she didn’t even have the strength to cry. They also denounced harassment so that this fact would not transcend.

According to judicial sources, the victim said that on the night of June 26, 2021 Villa “had drunk a lot of alcohol, more than a bottle of whiskey” and that during a barbecue he reproached him for “having looked” at his fellow soccer players, who were also part of the meeting and whose names were not revealed. After having a strong discussion, both left the place and went to the Colombian’s house together with his security employee nicknamed “Viking” and a friend of his, Felix Benitez. “At that moment the worst situation of my life began,” says the victim in her complaint, in which he recounts that, After being mistreated and beaten by Villa, she wanted to leave and, faced with this situation, the Boca striker sexually abused her. After that, the young woman called a friend and went to her house in Buenos Aires, where she bathed, put her clothes to wash and sectioned “her hair very short as a result of shock.” The young woman told that He has recorded the conversations in which the Colombian, through his friend Benítez, offers him $5,000 to forget “everything that happened”. This is the second complaint received by the footballer, since he is awaiting trial.

At the same time, the lawyer released Boca from the matter: “The club would be a patrimonial victim. I can’t blame him for putting Villa to play. His principle of innocence has not yet been broken”, although he made it clear that “from the club they did not contact Rocío ”, and regretted that the AFA had remained on the sidelines. “They did not contact us. I think they could have a gesture with the families of the victims. It would have been empathetic of him.”

Regarding the emotional state of the young woman, Castillo expressed: “She is bad, scared to death. She was away from the media, in terms of consuming them. This process is just beginning and she knows it’s going to be tough.”

According to the Télam agency, prosecutor Pérez plans to summon the five witnesses that the victim mentions in her complaint to testify starting this Wednesday. Although the names did not come out, it is likely that the victim’s friend who went to look for her at Villa’s house after the alleged abuse will appear, as well as “Vikingo”, the footballer’s security manager, and Benítez, who would have called on several occasions to the complainant to dissuade her from filing the complaint. Only later would they summon the striker.

Last Friday, after the presentation in court, the prosecutor imposed two prohibitions on Villa: approach to the victim and his family groupy Leave the countrya measure that was already in force due to the 2020 criminal case.

For the latter, the Colombian will soon face the oral trial. In the case of the episode involving Daniela Cortés, the accusation is of minor injuries aggravated by the bond and by gender-based violence in real contest with coercive threats on Monday, April 27, 2020 in the house they shared in a private neighborhood of the Buenos Aires town of Canning.