The allure of the Brazil team, with their iconic yellow shirts and samba football, remains powerful. But while the five-time world champions do indeed retain their global appeal, an increasing number of Brazil players past and present are making headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Recently, former Manchester City forward Robinho sentenced to a nine-year prison term for gang rape, while former Barcelona defender Dani Alves faces four-and-a-half years behind bars for raping a woman in a nightclub toilet. They are just the latest footballers from the South American nation to be engulfed in scandal.
ROBINHO
Beginning with the disgraced former Manchester City and Real Madrid forward, 40, who was told by judges on Wednesday he must serve a nine-year prison sentence in Brazil for his part in a group sexual assault in 2013.
Robinho, who played for AC Milan at the time, was one of six men found guilty in 2017 of gang raping a 22-year-old Albanian woman in a nightclub.
In January 2022, the Supreme Court in Rome dismissed his final appeal against the conviction. Italian authorities had asked to extradite Robinho from Brazil to serve his sentence – while that won’t happen, judges in Brasilia ruled he will be imprisoned in Brazil instead.
Robinho, who played 100 times for the national team, has insisted he is innocent and plans to appeal the decision.
DANI ALVES
That verdict came on the same day the ex-Brazil defender Dani Alves was released on a €1million [£850,000] bail after appealing his four-and-a-half year prison sentence for rape.
Alves, 40, one of the most decorated footballers of all-time, was found guilty last month of raping a woman in a Barcelona nightclub bathroom in the early hours of December 31, 2022.
He has been held in the Brians 2 Prison in Barcelona since January 2023 but can now leave on bail while he awaits his final sentence.
Prosecutors had pushed for Alves to receive a nine-year sentence, with the player always maintaining his innocence, saying the sexual encounter was consensual. His wife, the model Joana Sanz, filed for divorce following his arrest.
In eight years playing for Barcelona, Alves won six LaLiga titles and the Champions League three times. He played 126 times for his country.
ANTONY
Manchester United winger Antony might have scored in Sunday’s dramatic FA Cup win over Liverpool but he is absent from the latest Brazil squad.
He was removed from the squad picked for Brazil’s World Cup qualifiers against Bolivia and Peru in September following allegations of domestic violence against ex-girlfriend Gabriela Cavallin.
The 24-year-old player hasn’t been picked since, with police investigations into the allegations still ongoing in both Manchester and Sao Paulo.
The player denies the allegations but voluntarily attended an interview with Greater Manchester Police last September.
Cavallin claims Antony assaulted her at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Manchester on January 15 last year, damaging one of her breast implants.
She also claims Antony cut her finger to the bone in June when he threw a glass at her.
RONALDINHO
The man whose free-kick knocked England out of the 2002 World Cup was involved in a fake passport scandal after wrapping up his playing career in 2015.
In 2020, Ronaldinho – who enjoyed a glittering career with Paris Saint-Germain, Barcelona and AC Milan – was arrested alongside his brother Roberto de Assis, when they entered Paraguay on a promotional tour.
The pair were found to have falsified Paraguayan passports and ID, though prosecutors believed Ronaldinho had no idea the documents were fake.
While in prison, Ronaldinho played in a jail futsal tournament with his team winning 11-2 in the final with the former World Cup winner scoring five goals and setting up the other six.
After 32 days in the maximum security Asuncion prison – where Ronaldinho spent his 40th birthday – he was moved into a $380-a-night luxury hotel, otherwise empty amid Covid quarantines, under house arrest.
News reports in South America claimed that despite the restrictions, Ronaldinho often welcomed guests and spent many evenings hosting karaoke parties.
The brothers were fined $200,000 as part of a plea bargain and eventually returned to Brazil.
ADRIANO
Forward Adriano, who played 48 times for the national side between 2000 and 2010, was charged with drug trafficking while his playing career was still ongoing.
In 2010, prosecutors alleged Adriano had bought a motorbike and given it to a known drug dealer in the Rio de Janeiro favela where he grew up.
The bike was used for drug trafficking by a powerful criminal gang, it was alleged at the time, with Adriano facing a lengthy prison sentence if convicted.
But in 2014, judge Maria Tereza Donatti dismissed the case because there wasn’t enough evidence to uphold the accusations.
EDMUNDO
The forward nicknamed ‘The Animal’ was certainly a controversial character.
In 1999, Edmundo was threatened with prosecution by animal welfare groups after he hired an entire circus to perform in his back garden for his son’s first birthday.
At the party, he was pictured feeding beer and whisky to an Adidas tracksuit-wearing chimpanzee called Pedrinho.
That same year, while playing for Italian club Fiorentina, Edmundo escaped a four-and-a-half year prison sentence for driving while drunk and causing the deaths of three people when his Jeep Cherokee crashed into a Fiat during the Rio Carnival.
He was convicted of ‘culpable homicide’ but appeals drastically reduced his punishment to a seven-day suspended sentence.
HULK
The former Brazil striker certainly hit the headlines when it was revealed he’d married the niece of his former wife.
The 37-year-old, who is playing for Atletico Mineiro in his homeland, was previously married to Iran Angelo for 12 years. They had two sons, Ian and Tiago, and a daughter, Alice, together.
But Hulk – full name Givanlido Vieira de Sousa – announced five months after their divorce in 2019 that he was marrying Camila Angelo, his ex-wife’s niece.
A spokesman for the player said at the time: ‘Hulk called the parents and the brother of Camila and told them the truth. It was Hulk himself who made the information public because he had nothing to hide.’
The couple had a daughter, Zaya, in April 2022 and in December, they announced they have a boy on the way.
