The Barcelona Court sentenced Dani Alves on Thursday to four and a half years in prison for the sexual assault of a 23-year-old girl in the bathroom of a booth at the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona, in December 2022. While her lawyer Inés Guardiola communicated the sentence to the footballer in the dungeons of the Palau de Justícia, not far away, the BDO office, where her tax lawyer, Fernando Mota Bosch, practices, received another sentence linked to the player who agrees with her and which obliges the Treasury. to return 1.2 million euros.
In the ruling to which La Vanguardia has had access, issued by the fourth section of the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the National Court, the court upholds the appeal presented by the footballer against the process opened by the Treasury for the payment of the services of a FIFA agent. With the new sentence, the Treasury has to return a total of 9.2 million euros to Dani Alves.
The Brazilian's tax lawyers insist that the Tax Agency proceed to execute the payment and that it be able to have the money to present as a guarantee of bail to demand his immediate provisional release, until the sentence for sexual assault is final.
On the same Thursday that the sentence of section 21 of the Barcelona Court was announced, Inés Guardiola already assured her intention to appeal the text. And something else. In the coming days she will request the release of Alves, pending the resolution of the different appeals that the parties will present.
Guardiola and his team understand that with the sentence handed down, less than the sentences of 9 and 12 years that he faced, the high risk of flight has disappeared, and to ensure this they will offer part of the money that the Treasury owes him as a guarantee that he will not will flee. But to do this, he must first have the money.
Alves also has no criminal record, he has an address in Esplugues de Llobregat and surrendered his passport after being arrested on January 20 of last year, the day he entered prison. Some elements that, in Guardiola's opinion, are compatible with his provisional release.
Since his arrest for the rape complaint, Dani Alves has had all his accounts frozen without being able to access his funds. A dispute with his ex-wife Dinorah Santana over the support of his two children led to a judicial process in Brazil that led to the seizure of all of his capital and the impossibility of using the money. For this reason, he had to turn to the father of his friend Neymar to pay the 150,000 euros of civil liability that the court demanded from him during the investigation and which served as a mitigating circumstance to reduce his sentence.
In this new judicial dispute, the National Court has ruled in favor of the footballer, understanding that he should not declare the remuneration that FC Barcelona paid to FIFA agent Joaquín Macanás during the 2013-2014 financial year. The Central Administrative Economic Court considered that Alves had to declare the remuneration that Barça paid to the FIFA agent for his intermediation to convince the player to renew with the Barça club. These payments were made by Barça to the agent without the defender's knowledge. The Treasury thought that the one who benefited from that negotiation was the footballer and that therefore the amount collected by the agent should be attributed to the Brazilian as income from work. The player's defense argued that the agent was acting in favor of the club and not Alves, and the court has now agreed with him. He estimates that the Treasury ignores in its analysis “the legal transaction” carried out between the club and the agent and places it in “a parallel negotiating scheme” which is the representation contract between the player and the agent.
In the other five sentences in which the court has also ruled in favor of Dani Alves, they established that the footballer correctly settled his image rights while he was a footballer for FC Barcelona.
In the rape trial, the defense asked Alves precisely about the lack of financial availability he had at that time. Another element that Guardiola will use to defend that there is no longer a risk of escape. At the time, lawyer Cristobal Martell proposed in one of his requests for freedom, in addition to the daily signature in judicial or police offices, that a telematic bracelet be placed on him that would guarantee his commitment to justice.
