Robinho sees complicated future in football and closer retirement

Robinho was aware of the complexity of the situation, but he followed with hope the unfolding of his trial last Wednesday (19). A friend and relative of the attacker told the leaf that he had been warned of the difficulty of reversing the sentence, but had heard that it would not be impossible to avoid the penalty.

Did not avoid. The last instance of the Italian Justice confirmed the sentence to nine years in prison for rape, in a case that occurred in 2013, in Milan. The athlete is in Brazil, which does not extradite native Brazilians, and it is unlikely that the sentence will be transferred between countries, which does not change a reality: continuing a career in football has become difficult.

The player, to people close to him, sought to show optimism before the final hearing at the Supreme Court of Cassation in Rome. But he knew that his position was not simple and he was not surprised to receive the result presented by the judges in Italy.

The striker now considers his future in football. At 37 years old, he carried the expectation that he could return to play for Santos in case of acquittal. He was not interested in the polls he received from Brazilian teams, one of them from Série B of the Brazilian Championship. His assessment was that there was nothing he could do before the final decision was made.

When questioned, he said he did not know whether it would be possible to resume his career abroad, in a country without an extradition agreement with Italy and without running the risk of being arrested. To the interlocutors, he did not seem to want to leave Brazil once again. He has performed in Spain, England, Italy, China and Turkey.

The rape case took place when he was defending Milan. According to the Public Ministry’s investigation, Robinho and five other men practiced sexual violence against an Albanian woman, who was drunk, in the dressing room of a nightclub in Milan. A friend of the athlete, Ricardo Falco was also convicted. The other four are still defendants.

​Robinho has a version of the events on the night of the crime in which he claims that other people who were in the club had sex with the woman, but he did not.

Upon signing a contract with Santos in October 2020, he and his lawyers told the club that previous Italian court decisions did not take into account evidence that would be considered in the appeal and would change the course of the trial. This was one of the justifications given to counselors by the president at the time, Orlando Rollo, to justify the hit.

With the negative repercussion and pressure from sponsors, the contract was not carried out. The deal was terminated in February of last year, and Robinho never played. It would be his fourth time in the team that revealed him and where he exploded with the Brazilian title in 2002.

According to a family member, he spent a good part of Wednesday receiving and responding to messages of support, mainly from people in the football world. He replied that he was sad, but calm, and spoke of faith. The attacker declares himself evangelical.

For people who live with Robinho, the physical issue would not be a problem. He has been training almost every day, playing footvolley on the beaches of Santos and at his home in Guarujá, and playing football in fraternization matches.

In the next few months, the Vila Belmiro club must terminate a debt it has with the athlete for 2014 and 2015. To receive the debt of around R$2.5 million, he discounted the total amount and accepted installments of R$2.5 million. $150,000 monthly.