The court ruled by a majority of nine votes to two in favor of an Italian request that Robinho serve his sentence in his country after he was convicted in 2017 of the gang rape of an Albanian woman who was celebrating her twenty-third birthday in a club in Milan, noting that the incident occurred in 2013 while he was defending the Milan shirt.

Lawyers said that Robinho, who did not participate in Wednesday's session, would remain free pending the outcome of a possible appeal against the ruling.

The conviction was confirmed during an appeal in Italy in 2020, and then became final by the Italian Court of Cassation in 2022. At the beginning of the same year, the public prosecutor in Milan requested the extradition of the former international striker, whose full name is Robson de Souza, and issued an international arrest warrant against him, Knowing that Brazil does not extradite its citizens.

According to the ruling that convicted him in Italy, the former Brazilian international player (100 matches, 28 goals) and five of his compatriots made the victim drink alcohol “to the point of leaving her unconscious and unable to defend herself” and then had “sexual intercourse several times immediately” with her. .

The former player showed “particular contempt” towards the victim, and “brutally humiliated” her.

Robinho played in the last stop of his career with Istanbul Basaksehir in the Turkish League in 2020, before leaving to return to Brazil.

Robinho is not the only Brazilian star accused of rape, as former Barcelona star Dani Alves was sentenced last February in Spain to four and a half years in prison on charges of rape he committed in a nightclub in Barcelona at the end of 2022.

Robinho, who maintained his innocence, told the Brazilian TV Record network in an interview broadcast on Sunday that the sex took place "consensually."

He added, "I never denied that (the encounter). I could have denied it because my DNA was not there, but I am not a liar."

He also accused the Italian judicial system of "racism."