Brazilian footballer Dani Alves was taken into custody in Barcelona on Friday as part of an investigation into him for alleged sexual assault, Catalan regional police told AFP.
“He came this morning to the police station in Les Corts”, a district of Barcelona, where “he had been summoned. He was taken into custody and is on his way” to the Barcelona Courthouse, explained a door -word of the Mossos d’Esquadra, the Catalan police.
According to a judicial source, he was to be heard by a judge. On January 10, a Barcelona court announced that it had “opened an investigation into an alleged offense of sexual assault following the complaint presented by a woman against a football player”, without mentioning the player’s name. But a source familiar with the matter had confirmed to AFP that it was indeed Dani Alves.
This woman, who filed a complaint on January 2, accuses the 39-year-old player of touching, said the regional police. According to the local press, the alleged facts took place in a nightclub in Barcelona on the night of December 30 to 31.
Dani Alves denies
In a message sent to the Spanish channel Antena 3 on January 5, the 39-year-old player denied the facts.
“I would first like to deny it. I was there, in this place, I was having a good evening with other people, but without invading the space of others,” he said. “I don’t know who this young woman is, I don’t know her,” he said.
Former player of FC Barcelona, Juventus Turin and Paris Saint-Germain, Alves spent a few days of vacation in Barcelona after participating in the World Cup in Qatar with the Brazilian selection and before returning to his current club Pumas de Mexico.
