Former Manchester City and Real Madrid footballer Robinho has reportedly failed with his latest bid to reduce his prison sentence.
He has already served the first six months of a nine-year term for his part in a gang rape in Italy more than 10 years ago, when he was playing for AC Milan.
Robinho, whose real name is Robson de Souza, was one of six men who were found guilty of assaulting an Albanian woman in an Italian nightclub in January 2013.
He was found guilty in Italy in 2017 but his punishment was delayed by several appeals.
The 40-year-old was eventually handed a jail term in Brazil in March, following a landmark supreme court ruling, after Italian prosecutors felt he should serve his sentence in his homeland following an unsuccessful attempt to extradite him.
Former Man City forward Robinho, 40, is currently incarcerated in his home country of Brazil
He is serving a nine-year jail term after being convicted of gang rape while playing at AC Milan
Robinho is one of Brazil’s more affluent prisoners and is currently in Tremembe’s Penitentiary II, which is much less overcrowded than many jails in the country and has even been dubbed a ‘celebrity prison’.
The former football star – who was once the most expensive signing by an English club after joining City from Madrid for £32.5million in 2008 – has a team of lawyers trying to get his punishment reduced.
However, according to Portal Leo Dias, Robinho’s lawyers have failed – for the second time since he was sentenced – in their attempts to get his crime reclassified from ‘heinous’ to ‘common’.
In Brazil, ‘heinous’ crimes do not qualify for appeals. Robinho’s lawyers have argued that the rape should be considered ‘common’ because that is how it is categorised in Italy, where the offence took place.
Robinho’s football career ended in 2020. But The Sun reported last month that he had taken on a new job in prison.
The report claimed that he was learning new skills in basic electronics, including TV and radio repair, as part of a programme provided by the Brazilian Universal Institute to prepare inmates for life after their release.
Robinho was placed in this police car following his arrest in the beachfront city of Santos
Robinho was capped 100 times by Brazil in his playing career, scoring 28 international goals
Lawyer Mario Rosso Vale was quoted as saying: ‘Robinho is keeping his head down and quietly getting on with it… he is being an exemplary inmate and has had no issues with other prisoners.
‘They even gave him some football boots, once he was integrated, to join in the games during recreation time.
‘He is keeping himself occupied. He has signed up for a basic electronics course learning how to repair TVs and radios. He has to do 600 hours of remote learning to qualify in this area.’
