The Italian Court of Cassation upheld the nine-year prison sentence for Brazilian player Robinho. 

In January 2013, the former AC Milan player was accused of gang rape. Facts are now confirmed as indicated by the victim's lawyer. The judges of the third criminal section, meeting in Rome, "considered that the appeal lodged by the player was inadmissible and that the conviction is final", victim's counsel, Jacopo Gnocchi, told the press. “In total, fifteen Italian magistrates considered that the accusations were proven. Our wish is that Brazil carries out the sentence,” he added.

According to media reports, Robinho, 37, and five of his friends allegedly made a 22-year-old Albanian woman drink "to the point of rendering her unconscious and unable to resist". They would then have had “multiple and consecutive sexual intercourses” with her. A court in Milan had found him guilty in 2017 of gang rape on this young woman and sentenced him to nine years in prison. 

Robinho was briefly arrested in England in 2009, suspected of raping a woman in a nightclub in Leeds.