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When he went to visit the CBF last week, Santos president Orlando Rollo was accompanied by six people. In the delegation there was a councilor, a state deputy and a delegate from the São Paulo Civil Police. None of them could advise the top hat, himself a civilian policeman, to give up hiring a player convicted of sexual violence against a woman in Italy. Yes, the decision is of the first instance. Yes, there are resources. Yes, the defense appealed. Yes, Robinho is a free man to play soccer in Brazil. But it is not about that.
Fortunately, the reporter Lucas Ferraz did the work that the president of Santos and his battalion of advisers and lawyers could not do and it was after the sentence, handed down in November 2017 by a court in Milan, a public document in Italy. The report published this Friday by ge has alarming details about what happened during and after sunrise on January 22, 2013.
Read More:Santos and Robinho announce contract suspension: ‘If I get in the way, I’d better go’
It is unnecessary to describe the scenes of that night, but it is important to highlight the behavior of Robinho and his friends during the investigation of the case. Stapled by the Italian authorities, the player and his friends were caught looking down on the victim and combining what they would say in their statements. To use a judge’s term in the case – called “waxer” by Robinho’s attorney – the wiretapping is “self-accusatory.”
All this information was available to Santos a week ago, when the club proudly announced the return of Robinho, with the right to joke on social media. Either their coaches were unaware of the situation – which shows a level of negligence with the club unacceptable even by the flexible standards of Brazilian soccer – or they knew everything and still decided to go ahead with the recruiting theater. Which makes it worse.
Saints: Robinho’s hiring announcement sparks uproar and is repudiated on the internet
Two days before the report was released, Santos published a delusional “official note” deliberately written to confuse rather than clarify. “It would not be up to our community to turn its back and declare a final judgment of value in a process with ongoing appeals,” says an excerpt from the statement, as if it were a football club that convicted or acquitted anyone.
What Santos has been asking for since last week is a little empathy, coherence with the discourse of those who preach an end to violence against women, of those who take women’s football seriously – at least, a little zeal with the His image, be careful with the message that is sent to society when trying to install on the altar of idolatry a man convicted of sexual violence against a woman.
Verdict:Robinho’s conviction says that the player was the first to rape the victim and speaks of humiliation; read excerpts
Santos’s note aged poorly and aged rapidly. As soon as the details of the case were revealed, the sponsors began a coordinated movement to push for the termination of Robinho’s contract. Under the threat of flight from the companies that finance the club, the best players finally undid what they should never have done and stopped hiring Robinho. Santos’ financial ruin ended up avoiding a major mistake. And for defining a story that ends without winners.