The barrier broken by the woman who reported soccer player Dani Alves for rape: ‘Who is going to believe me?’

The 23-year-old girl allegedly raped by Brazilian soccer player Dani Alves at the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona expressed two great fears after the sexual assault: that her name would come to light and that — given the fame of the man she is accusing — nobody would believe her.

Reality has confirmed only the first of those fears: her full name and her image have circulated on social media in an attempt by the footballer’s entourage (including his mother) to discredit her. The second fear, however, has faded: from the beginning, the investigators — as well as the judge and the prosecutor in the case — were convinced that she was telling the truth. Her complaint resulted in Alves being detained and held in prison. The trial will run from February 5-7 in Barcelona.

“I’m not going to report it, because… who’s going to believe me?” the girl said, spontaneously and between tears, to the person in charge of the nightclub and to a bouncer who had seen her crying in the hallway. The victim was next to her cousin and a friend, ready to leave the club. It was after 4 a.m. on December 31, 2022. At that moment, Alves passed by her and — without a greeting or a gesture — left Sutton, surrounded by the club’s security personnel. The young woman hadn’t given the footballer’s name to management at that time, which would have forced them, according to the protocol for sexual assaults, to detain him until the police arrived.

The alleged sexual assault had occurred minutes earlier in the suite. The room — accessible via key access — has a sofa, a television and a bathroom. It can only be used by clients who reserve table number six in the VIP area. That night, it was occupied by Dani Alves, who went to Sutton (a venue where he has been a regular customer since 2008) accompanied by a Brazilian friend. The former Barça footballer saw three girls on the dance floor and asked a waiter to encourage them to come to his table, so that he could invite them for a drink. As the group was dancing, Alves approached the girl with sexual intentions and motioned for her to enter the suite. There are no images of what happened in the bathroom but there are six versions of events: one from the young woman (who has maintained, from the beginning, that she was raped) and five from Alves, who insists that the sex was consensual.

The judicial process against Alves — as in many sexual assault cases in which there’s no conclusive material evidence, only circumstantial evidence — has become a question about credibility. And, in this sense, the victim has clearly prevailed, despite her initial fear, shared with many other victims, of not being believed.

Vicente L. is the bouncer who, after 2 a.m., let the victim through the door of Sutton along with two of her companions. He was the same person who, two hours later, found her crying. “What’s wrong, [are you heartbroken]?” But that’s not the reason why she was crying.

The girl had told her cousin that Alves had done her “a lot of harm” in the bathroom and had ejaculated inside her without her consent. When he saw the scene, Robert Massanet, Sutton’s manager, figured out that something was wrong. The victim told him that she wanted to leave, but they all took her to an office so that she could calm down and explain herself. It wasn’t easy for her to recount what had happened. Another person in charge of the club, Rafael Lledó, asked her if she wanted to file a complaint. She said no: “I’m not going to report it, because who’s going to believe me?” Lledó, however, activated the protocol and called the police.

One of the officers who arrived at Sutton mistakenly turned on the camera he had with him during the interview with the girl. What she said there was, basically, what she also repeated in court: she said that she had voluntarily entered the bathroom with the soccer player (where they remained for 16 minutes in total), but that she then wanted to leave. It was at that moment that Alves locked the door.

According to her version, the former soccer player tried to force her to perform fellatio, slapped her and demanded that she tell him “I’m your little whore.” After turning her around in the tiny space, he penetrated her vaginally — “very hard” — and without her consent, until he ejaculated. The young woman, who was very distressed, reiterated to the agents that she wasn’t planning to report the incident because nobody would believe her. She was also concerned that the surveillance cameras would show that she had voluntarily entered the bathroom. The circumstances, however, haven’t dented her credibility.

The young woman was transferred to the local hospital, where she was examined. On January 3, 2023, she testified more extensively to the police. In addition to listening to her, the officers evaluated her “emotional state.” She arrived late at the police station because news had begun to appear about the sexual assault attributed to Alves. She experienced a panic attack. In this second statement, according to the police report, she displayed “feelings of helplessness, incomprehension, anger and paranoia” at “the lies on social media” and real “terror” at the possibility that her name would come to light. She once again expressed her doubts about filing the complaint with the same phrase: “No one will believe me.”

January 20, 2023 was the key day in the Alves case. That day, the Brazilian player was arrested. The victim and the aggressor appeared before the investigating judge, Anna Marín. From that first struggle over the veracity of the story, the victim emerged victorious… at least, in the eyes of the prosecutor and the judge. Her statement was “clear, firm, forceful, credible, coherent and persistent,” according to the judge’s order, who — on the contrary — highlighted the “three or four versions” offered up by Alves. He first said that they only talked and danced, but that nothing sexual happened between them, nor did he invite her into the suite. But upon seeing that the images contradicted this and that traces of his semen were found in the sink, he then changed his story to say that the girl did in fact go into the bathroom and that she stayed with him until he relieved himself. But when they told him that semen had been found on the victim, he changed his story yet again and alleged that she had “lunged” at him and performed fellatio on him.

Given Alves’ contradictory statements and the risk that he would flee Spain, that same day, the judge sent him to pretrial detention, a situation that his defense team hasn’t been able to reverse (he has changed lawyers three times). Since April of 2023, when he voluntarily testified to obtain conditional freedom, Alves maintains that there was penetration, but that it was consensual (he hadn’t said this before, he explained, so that his wife, model Joana Sanz, wouldn’t find out about the infidelity). In his most recent defense brief presented a few weeks ago, he requested that, if the court doesn’t believe him, to at least apply the mitigating circumstance of drunkenness. He claims that, on the night in question, he had been drinking heavily and didn’t know what he was doing.

The prosecutor is requesting nine years in prison for Alves, while the victim is asking for 12. The prosecutor is also asking that Alves pay compensation to the victim in the amount of €150,000 ($162,000). At first, the victim had waived “any financial compensation” — as stated by the judge in the prison order — because her concern was that justice be done. Later, she changed her mind (something that she has the right to do under Spanish law), because, at the time, she wasn’t aware of the toll that the judicial process was going to take on her. She has suffered from psychological consequences and has lost income due to time spent on sick leave.

The release of her personal information was the last straw. In the detention order issued more than a year ago against Alves, the judge already indicated that it was “necessary to protect the identity of the victim” and warned of criminal liability for anyone who didn’t do so. A few weeks ago, Alves’ entourage released a video montage that attempts to erode the victim’s credibility, by showing her in a party context with friends. One of the people who published that video was Alves’s mother. The investigating court in Barcelona has opened a case into the matter.

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