Disgraced former £33m Man City star Robinho will spend Christmas in JAIL after bid for festive release from his nine-year rape sentence fails

Former Manchester City and Real Madrid footballer Robinho is spending his first Christmas behind bars after being told he doesn’t qualify for the temporary festive release thousands of prisoners at his lock-up will enjoy.

A man sentenced to nearly 40 years in jail for holding his teenage ex-girlfriend hostage before murdering her are among more than 2,500 prisoners benefiting from 11 days’ festive season freedom at the Tremembe Prison Complex near Sao Paulo where the former Brazil international is being held.

But prison chiefs have confirmed Robinho is not eligible for the prison perk and will not get to spend family time with his wife Vivian and their three children at their home in Santos after he was made to start his nine-year jail sentence for rape in March.

They have also confirmed no special events have been programmed for New Years Eve at Penitentiary II Dr Jose Augusto Salgado in Tremembe, better known as P2 Tremembe and dubbed the ‘Prison for Famous People’ in Brazil because it offers inmates better conditions than at other lock-ups in the state of Sao Paulo.

Brazil’s Prison Service confirmed in a statement, referring to 40-year-old Robinho by his real name of Robson de Souza: ‘Inmate Robson de Souza is serving a sentence under a closed regime and is not entitled to temporary release, a benefit granted by the Judiciary only to semi-open regime inmates. 

‘Tremembe Penitentiary II, which holds Robson, will not be holding any special programmes for the end-of-year celebrations.’

Robinho will not qualify for Christmas release from his prison sentence in Brazil

The former Brazilian international was jailed for nine years after being found guilty of rape

Robinho has been behind bars since March 21. His friend Ricardo Falco entered prison in June after a Brazilian court decided he should also serve the jail sentence handed down to them by an Italian court.

Both men were convicted of sexually assaulting an Albanian woman in a club in Milan in January 2013 while he was at AC Milan.

Their failed appeals in Italian courts lasted years and they returned to Brazil while they awaited the final decision after being bailed.

Reports in late October around the time Robinho had been behind bars for seven months said his prison routine revolved around football matches with other inmates once or twice a week, reading groups and classes in basic electronics which will help him reduce the time he has to spend in jail.

The 117 prisoners at Robinho’s jail who are benefitting from 11 days of freedom over the festive period include Lindemberg Alves according to local reports.

He was sentenced to 39 years in prison in 2013 over the October 2008 kidnapping and murder of 15-year-old former girlfriend Eloa Cristina Pimentel, held hostage for 100 hours before being shot dead.

Another inmate at Robinho’s prison said to be benefitting from the Christmas and New Year temporary release scheme is Cristian Cravinhos, sentenced to 38 years and six months in jail over the murder of a German engineer and his Brazilian psychiatrist wife in October 2002.

He and his brother Daniel Cravinhos were found guilty of acting on the instructions of the couple’s daughter Suzane von Richthofen. 

Robinho was capped 100 times by Brazil in his playing career, scoring 28 international goals

Robinho was placed in this police car following his arrest in the beachfront city of Santos

Suzane and Daniel met in August 1999 and began a relationship shortly afterward. 

They became very close, but the relationship did not have the support of their families, especially the Richthofens, who forbade it.

Suzane, Daniel, and Cristian then hatched a plan to fake a robbery and murder the Richthofen couple, so that the three of them could share Suzane’s inheritance.

Around 2,440 inmates held in another jail which forms part of the Tremembe Prison Complex have also been allowed out until January 3 next year.