Veteran Brazilian striker Robinho has rejoined his boyhood club Santos, who he left to join Real Madrid as a 21-year-old rising star before spells with Manchester City and AC Milan. The 36-year-old penned a five-month deal paying the nominal amount of about 230 euros (250 dollars) per month with bonuses and an extension if things go well. “This has always been my home, it’s so special to come back here where my career began,” he said. He is currently a fugitive from Italian justice, having been condemned to jail for rape in Italy in 2017. Robinho shot to fame with goals galore for the Rio outfit, which also produced Neymar and Pele, before Real Madrid signed him to great fanfare in 2006. A slight and sublimely talented centre forward, Robinho won league titles with Real and Milan and also turned out 100 times for Brazil, winning the Copa America and the Confederations Cup.
Following an attempt by one of Brazil’s top football clubs to appoint a convicted rapist as the leader of their offensive, a public discussion concerning sexual violence and rape culture broke out in that country.
On October 10, Santos Futebol Clube, the birthplace of athletes like Pelé and Neymar, revealed the very contentious signing of Robinho, a former striker for Manchester City.
Journalist Araújo of television referred to Santos’s hiring of Robinho as “disgusting.”
The thing that most surprised me about this case was how shamelessly this major Brazilian team signed a man who had been found guilty of rape. Not only has he been accused. He was already found guilty, and there was a grandiose celebration of his signature.
Robinho’s intercepted messages, according to Araújo, encapsulated the urgency of speaking out against the “poisonous” culture of rape. “He doesn’t consider himself a criminal—this is a very typical way of thinking in Brazil.”
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