BUENOS AIRES, Argentina: Three professional Argentinian soccer players were placed under house arrest Thursday for allegedly raping a sports journalist in a hotel room.
The judge sentenced three of the four defendants to house arrest for 90 days. All four defendants play for first-division club Velez Sarsfield. The fourth player was released on bail.
All four players were suspended from the team, which is third in Argentina’s top league and counts Atletico Madrid boss Diego Simeone among its former players.
The case began after a 24-year-old sports reporter said she was invited by Uruguay international Sebastian Sosa to a hotel room in Tucuman, Argentina, on March 3, where three other defendants were waiting for him to rape her.
She said that after several drinks, she felt dizzy and lay down on the bed, where she was raped.
Prosecutor Eugenia Posse is seeking to charge players Braian Cufre and Jose Florentin with rape, while Abiel Osario is accused of sexual harassment. All three were put under house arrest.
Sosa was granted $57,000 bail and banned from leaving the country for 90 days. He is being charged as a secondary participant.
In order to prevent them from interfering in the investigation, the prosecutor had requested the arrest of all four people in temporary custody.
The players who all testified in the court hearing may face punishments between 4 and 20 years in prison.
Buenos Aires-based Velez Sarsfield Football Club has announced it has suspended four players and ordered an internal investigation.
The club in a statement on Monday expressed its deep concern at the events reported which it said are clearly at odds with the principles and values of the association.
The hearing comes after a Spanish court ordered former Brazil international Dani Alves on bail of a million euros pending an appeal against his conviction for raping a woman at a Barcelona nightclub in December 2022. This happened the same week he was released.
Meanwhile, in Brazil, former Manchester City and Real Madrid player Robinho is seeking a delay in the start of his nine-year sentence for gang-raping a woman in a Milan nightclub in 2013.
