International Football
Higuita, Ronaldinho, Maradona, Benjamin Mendy… other footballers who went to jail before Dani Alves
Dani Alves is currently in jail after being involved in a case of sexual assault. Unfortunately, he is not the first footballer who has ended up behind bars. We review other striking cases throughout history.
Dani Alves, a former player of FC Barcelona and Seville, has spent his first weekend in pretrial detention without bail by order of the head of the trial court number 15 in Barcelona for the accusation of having raped a 23-year-old girl on the night of the December 30 in the bathroom of the Sutton nightclub.
Ronaldinho was in prison for 171 days in Paraguay for falsifying passports.
Gabriel Cortez
The former Barcelona Sporting player entered pretrial detention in April 2022
This midfielder for the Barcelona Sporting Club of Ecuador entered pretrial detention in April 2022 accused of being in a gang of hitmen.
Adam Johnson
He was sentenced to six years for having sexual relations with a minor. Six years old, he only turned three.
Benjamin Mendy
The former City player stepped in jail in 2021 accused of various rapes and sexual assault. He left her in January 2022 after posting bail. The trial declared him innocent.
Semedo
The Portuguese central defender left the PIcasssent prison shortly before signing for Huesca after 142 days there, where he was in preventive detention accused of alleged crimes of attempted homicide, injuries, threats, illegal detention, illegal possession of weapons and robbery with violence
Vinicius ‘Breno’ Broges
In 2011, Breno burned down his house while drunk and was sentenced to three years in prison.
Nizar Trabelsi
The Tunisian was related to Islamic terrorism and was sentenced to 10 years for being an accomplice in the attack on the Twin Towers
Bruno Fernandes de Souza
The goalkeeper asked that his partner be destroyed. The young woman’s body was never found and the footballer was sentenced in 2013 to 22 years in prison
Juanele
Pedrag Stankovic
The former Hercules was in jail in 2009 after the “Cyclone operation” for drug trafficking
Jesus Emilio Diez ‘Txutxi’
For the same “Cyclone case” he was sentenced to nine years in prison.
Freddy Rincon
The ill-fated former Real Madrid player spent 123 days in prison for drug trafficking
Lucas Viatri
The one from Boca was only under pressure for a month after being involved in a hairdresser
Edmund
The former Fiore player was sentenced to four years in prison for being involved in a fatal traffic accident, but in the end he only served one day.
Maradona
In 1991 he was detained for cocaine use, shortly after he was released. Three years later, he also stepped in jail for a few hours due to a problem with journalists.
René Higuita
“I remember that they put me in jail and after eight days they come to tell me that I am there because of the anti-kidnapping law. It sounded to me like ‘hand over Pablo Escobar and you have not committed any crime’. They handcuffed me and put me in a Helicopter and I had another helicopter behind escorting me. They haven’t done this even to the worst drug trafficker. They only did it to René Higuita,” said the Colombian
Peter Storey
He was in 1979 for running a brothel, distributing pornography and counterfeiting gold coins later.
-Marca
Representatives from four national players’ unions on Thursday launched a new global organisation in Madrid, which they say will strengthen footballers’ rights and improve dialogue with governing bodies.
Opening a new front in the battle over who speaks for players, the International Footballers’ Association (AIF) was unveiled, with David Aganzo, president of Spain’s Association of Footballers (AFE) and a former head of the global union FIFPRO, appointed to lead the organisation.
Players’ unions from Brazil, Mexico and Switzerland were also represented.
The initiative drew a swift rebuke from FIFPRO, which said in a statement that Aganzo was acting out of self-interest and aligning himself with organisations linked to football governing bodies, as well as groups expelled from FIFPRO over alleged mismanagement.
Aganzo rejected the criticism, saying he “will not seek confrontation with FIFPRO”.
The launch comes amid strained relations between players’ unions and football authorities, particularly over the expanding international match calendar.
Relations between FIFA and FIFPRO deteriorated in 2024 after the union lodged a complaint with the European Commission, arguing that the global governing body was abusing its dominant position by adding competitions without sufficient consultation.
Aganzo denied suggestions that the new initiative was backed by FIFA president Gianni Infantino, but said “direct dialogue with FIFA” was essential.
AFE’s Extraordinary General Assembly approved the initiative in February with 99.8% of votes cast in favour of spearheading the creation of the AIF.
The same assembly also backed AFE’s withdrawal from FIFPRO, citing what it described as a “complete lack of transparency, as well as its total lack of dialogue with international bodies.”
“We represent over 30,000 footballers, and we come here with a new model aimed at safeguarding players’ rights and facilitating direct communication with all international bodies,” Aganzo told reporters.
“We are in contact with 15 to 20 unions already who were very aware of this moment and waiting for this announcement to make their move and join our initiative.”
He declined to identify any unions beyond those present.
Asked about a report that a senior envoy to U.S. President Donald Trump had urged FIFA to replace Iran with Italy at the upcoming World Cup, Aganzo urged caution.
“These are more political issues; on April 30th, I’ll be speaking to Gianni (Infantino) at the FIFA Congress, and we will discuss those things,” Aganzo said.
“People who want to go to the World Cup have to earn their place on sporting merit.”
-Reuters
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A new trial over the death of Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona will begin on Tuesday, with seven members of his medical team charged with negligent homicide nearly a year after a previous case collapsed in a mistrial.
An enduring presence in Argentina – from towering murals to tattoos, opens new tab – Maradona died on November 25, 2020, at 60, after a heart attack while he was recuperating from brain surgery to remove a blood clot.
A court in San Isidro, near Buenos Aires, will hear testimony from just under 100 witnesses as it tries Maradona’s medical team over alleged negligence in the death of the 1986 World Cup champion.
His medical team has denied wrongdoing. The defendants are psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque, psychologist Carlos Angel Diaz, physician Nancy Edith Forlini, nurse Ricardo Almiron, head nurse Mariano Ariel Perroni, and physician Pedro Pablo Di Spagna. An eighth defendant, nurse Dahiana Madrid, will be tried in a separate jury trial, with no date yet set.
Two months into the first trial, which started last March, a mistrial was declared when one of three judges, Julieta Makintach, resigned after video surfaced showing her being interviewed by a camera crew in the corridors of the courthouse and in her office as part of a documentary, in breach of judicial rules.
The retrial will require both prosecutors and defense lawyers to reassess their strategies after the first trial aired photographs, videos, audio recordings and forensic evidence. Many witnesses, including Maradona’s children and his former wife, Claudia Villafane, have already testified.
Prosecutors argued in the initial trial that medical professionals broke treatment protocols and that the home where Maradona was recovering from surgery amounted to a “theatre of horror,” where necessary care was not provided.
The defense countered that his death was inevitable given his longstanding health problems. Maradona struggled for decades with cocaine and alcohol addiction.
The negligence charges emerged in 2021 after prosecutors appointed a medical board to investigate Maradona’s death. The panel concluded his medical team acted in an “inappropriate, deficient and reckless” manner.
-Reuters
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Aliou Cisse has been named coach of the Angola national team, the country’s football federation (FAF) announced on Thursday, 24 hours after the Senegalese left his post in Libya.
The 50-year-old coach, who led Senegal to their maiden Africa Cup of Nations title in 2022, ended his short stint with the Libyan national team on Wednesday, after taking charge in March 2025.
“Welcome, Aliou Cisse, head coach of the Angola national team,” the FAF said on Facebook. Angola, which failed to reach this year’s World Cup, will start their 2027 AFCON qualifying campaign in September.
-Reuters
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