It belongs to the club’s discipline, but today nobody can buy a shirt with the name of Santi Mina in the official Celta store. The image and biography of number 22 of the Vigo team can no longer be consulted on the Galician club’s website, which has also stopped following his trail on Instagram, the only social network that keeps the footballer convicted by the Provincial Court of Almería open to four years in prison for a crime of sexual abuse. Only a radical turn of events would cause the 26-year-old player to wear the Celta shirt again, which is instructing a file to elucidate what are the labor responsibilities that derive from the sentence. The club, in short, is looking for a way to resolve a bond that lasts until June 2024 with one of the highest-paid players on its squad.
Meanwhile, a veil hangs over Mina’s daily life, away from the club and without the possibility of training with the team or at the club’s facilities. “He has not left home since the sentence was known. He is sunk, as is normal, ”says a source consulted. They all ask for discretion and, as far as possible, understanding. It also points to a change of strategy, and even of defense, in the face of the appeal that will be substantiated before the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia. Even so, Mina does not have it easy to return to dedicate himself professionally to football.
“Rapist”, he shouted out to him from the Balaídos stands last Saturday during the match against Alavés. The reproaches started from a sector of the celestial animation stands and provoked a certain response among those who surely understood that it was not the time or the place to enter into plebiscites. For Mina’s colleagues it is not an easy situation to manage and they maintain a thick silence on the subject. Hardly Iago Aspas has spoken, with restraint and discomfort. “Is a delicate topic. In the workforce we want to be a little on the sidelines because at the moment there are many lawyers and judges in the press rooms or on social networks”, slipped the light-blue emblem in an interview previously arranged with Cadena SER. Nobody wants to take false steps.
Quite a few of his classmates have known Santi Mina since he was a child. His father was a seasoned defender who was known by his surname, a man from Teruel who had grown up in the Barcelona youth academy, in the old Fabra i Coats, and who arrived at Celta in 1981. He tiptoed in football, but he settled in the town. As a junior, when the club didn’t even have a team in that category, Santi Mina attended the Brunete tournament to represent the club. Months later, he joined the sky-blue youth team and, at just 17 years old, in February 2013, he debuted with the first team shortly after signing a professional contract. Two years later, a stellar night with four goals against Rayo Vallecano shot up his price and in July 2015 Valencia paid the 10 million euros of his clause. The soccer player belonged to the discipline of the Che team when in June 2017 the facts occurred and were reported. Even so, in the summer of 2019 Celta decided to allocate 15 million euros to recover him in the framework of a return operation that brought several youth squads back to the team he loved.
The club from Vigo did not make decisions until there was a sentence. And the fact that this is not firm helps to explain why an immediate dismissal of the footballer is not carried out. If he entered prison without an option to appeal, the Workers’ Statute points to a fair dismissal. But Mina has at least two instances left to turn to, first to the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia and, ultimately, to the Supreme Court. So at this procedural moment, an eventual admission to a penitentiary center, as requested by the private prosecution, would barely suspend the employment relationship, but it would not extinguish it. Nor does it seem likely that this will happen because Mina does not have a criminal record, nor does it seem that there is a risk of flight or recidivism, so that while the legal proceedings continue, Celta is holding a very hot potato.
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