Four footballers from Vélez Sársfield, a team in the first category of the Argentine professional league, face a trial for the alleged sexual abuse of a 24-year-old woman. Sebastián Sosa, 37, José Florentín (27), Braian Cufré (27) and Abel Osorio (21) were arrested this Monday by order of a prosecutor from the city of San Miguel de Tucumán, 1,200 kilometers north of Buenos Aires. The club they work for announced that it will suspend the contracts of the four players while it “determines definitive measures.” This Wednesday, the judge in charge of the case decided to charge Cufré and Florentín as perpetrators of aggravated sexual abuse, Osorio with simple sexual abuse, and Sosa as a secondary participant.
On Saturday, March 2, according to the complaint, the young sports journalist was invited to the hotel where the Vélez Sársfield players were spending the night after facing a local team, Atlético Tucumán, and waiting for their return to Buenos Aires. Sosa, one of the goalkeepers of the Uruguayan senior team, had met her in the mixed zone after the game and invited her to her room after exchanging messages on Instagram. Days later, on Wednesday, March 6, the young woman reported to the police that three of her soccer players had abused her. Sosa allegedly did not participate in the rape, but she remained in the room during the act.
In her complaint, the young woman stated that she had suspicions that her drinks were adulterated, because she felt weak and lay down on one of the beds in the room before being abused. According to the local newspaper The Gazettethe case file includes the report of a gynecologist who, on March 5, certified that the young woman suffered from irritation to her genitals, and that of the police forensic doctor who found bruises on her body the day he received the complaint. .
The case has once again uncovered a major problem in Argentine football, where complaints of sexist violence are frequent. On Tuesday, two other players, youth players from the Mendoza team Godoy Cruz, were separated due to a rape complaint. Two players from the world champion team in 2022, Thiago Almada and Gonzalo Montiel, are also awaiting judicial resolution of complaints against them. In June of last year, the case of Colombian striker Sebastián Villa became the last of almost a dozen Boca Juniors players investigated for violence against women. Villa was convicted of hitting and verbally abusing his wife, but the trial did not prevent the club from waiting until the last minute while he testified at the hearings so that he could play international matches. In Boca they are also waiting for the start of the trial against Jorge Daniel Martínez, coach of the women's First Division until mid-2023, due to a complaint from the team's press officer.
Vélez, the first Argentine club to apply an action protocol against complaints of gender violence, acted quickly in this latest scandal: on March 7, as soon as the complaint became known, it removed the players from the team and this Monday suspended their contracts while the trial takes place. They have also initiated an internal summary to accompany the judicial investigation. “The club's position is clear. We are waiting for Justice to speak to determine what we do with them,” said the club's president, Fabián Berlanga, in a television interview. “We understand that the people of the club want the contracts to be terminated, but it is not that easy because there are laws.”
The players found out about the suspension of their contracts this Monday, while they were transferred to the penitentiary where they were detained for 48 hours while the judge decided on their preventive detention. The four players live in Buenos Aires and traveled to Tucumán for the hearings. “If he has to live in Tucumán until it is resolved, he will do it,” said lawyer Ernesto Baaclini, Sosa's representative, this Wednesday. The judge has not yet decided whether the four footballers will face trial in freedom.
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