He's a looker isn't he?
(yes this is a cope thread)
Former Brazil international Robinho arrested to serve rape sentence
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3 hours ago
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
By Leonardo Rocha
Americas Editor
Former Brazil international football player Robinho has been arrested to serve a nine-year prison sentence for rape.
He was convicted two years ago in Italy for his part in the gang rape of an Albanian woman at a night club in Milan in 2013.
Robinho, 40, was arrested at his flat in his home city of Santos.
The Italian government had requested that he serve his sentence in Brazil after failing to get him extradited.
On Wednesday, a court in Brazil upheld the decision and also ruled that he should serve his time behind bars instead of under house arrest.
Earlier on Thursday, a Supreme Court judge rejected a request to halt his detention.
The decisive action taken by Brazil's justice system has been praised by many on local media, who feared that Robinho would evade justice thanks to his fame and his wealth.
The former Brazil international, who has 100 caps for his country, was playing for AC Milan at the time of the crime. After being found guilty, he lost an appeal in 2020 before Italy's highest court upheld his sentence in 2022.
Italian prosecutors then issued an international arrest warrant for him.
The footballer, who spent two years with Manchester City, told a Brazilian network on Sunday that the sex had been "consensual".
‘Incredibly proud’: Richard Hughes confirmed as Liverpool sporting director
- Bournemouth technical director will join in summer
- ‘Good decisions enhance prospects of having a team that wins’
PA Media
Wed 20 Mar 2024 13.11 GMT
Liverpool have confirmed the appointment of Richard Hughes as their new sporting director. Hughes, who announced this month he would leave his role as Bournemouth’s technical director at the end of the season, will officially take up his new role on 1 June.
Michael Edwards, recently installed as Fenway Sports Group’s chief executive of football, has had a longstanding desire to work with Hughes and they have a professional and personal relationship spanning more than 20 years having worked together during Hughes’s playing career at Portsmouth.
Returning Edwards offers Liverpool stability with testing summer ahead
Read more
It is understood when Julian Ward left his role as Liverpool’s sporting director last summer Edwards was surprised Hughes was not one of the candidates to be interviewed by club owners FSG.
“I am incredibly proud to be offered this opportunity. Liverpool FC is a unique club and I’m grateful to be given a chance to serve it in this capacity,” Hughes told the club’s website. “People rightly talk about the rich history this organisation can boast, but it is the present and future which really excites me.
“It will be my job, working with Michael and leading the football operations team already in place, plus the wider staff at the AXA Training Centre, to make good decisions. That’s really what the job entails: you have to make the kind of good decisions which enhance the prospects of having a team that wins and excites the supporters. It is what Liverpool have done well for a very long time and the benefits are there for everyone to see.”
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Michael Edwards is confident that Richard Hughes’s arrival will help the club deal with the departure of Jürgen Klopp. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Edwards and Hughes will be key figures as the club transitions from the departure of Jürgen Klopp at the end of the season. Hughes was the driving force behind the appointment of Andoni Iraola as Bournemouth head coach last summer, with Iraola saying they had a “very good connection”.
Iraola shares the same agency as the Bayer Leverkusen manager, Xabi Alonso, the former Liverpool midfielder who is the bookmakers’ favourite to succeed Klopp. In his time at Bournemouth, Hughes would have secured the appointment of Roberto De Zerbi, another being linked with Liverpool, had there not been a delay due to a change of the club’s ownership that allowed Brighton to secure the Italian.
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Edwards is confident Hughes’s arrival is the first step in building the post-Klopp era. “It is clear to everyone that Jürgen will leave a legacy to build upon and in Richard we have the right person to make the key decisions and offer the leadership to take us forward into a bright future,” Edwards told the club’s website.
“As one very successful chapter will come to a close for Liverpool in the summer, the objective of everyone here is for another one to begin – and with Richard I am confident we have the right person in position for us to achieve this aim.”