The Barcelona Prosecutor’s Office has presented a complaint against a coach of a junior and senior soccer team of the Catalan capital for the alleged sexual assault, between September 2014 and April 2015, to four players who were between 8 and 11 years old when the events occurred. The accused trained then to a historic club in a neighborhood of Badalonawhere, according to investigations, he allegedly abused two other minors in December 2022, two years after he was sentenced to three months in prison, and disqualified from working with children, for possession of child pornography.
The Court of Instruction number 7 of Barcelona has admitted the complaint filed by prosecutor Alexandra García Tabernero and has reopened the process, which was provisionally archived due to the need for a complaint or complaint, according to the judicial sources consulted by EL PERIÓDICO. The police investigation has been carried out by the Mossos Investigation Unit of the Sant Martí district, where the club where the accused trained is based and from which he was fired in 2015 after being caught by the president of the entity in an inappropriate attitude towards minors.
The president of the Barcelona club surprised the coach, kicked him out of the club and informed the family, who did not file a complaint, and the football federation.
The investigated person has another open case in Badalona, where he continued training despite being disqualified for child pornography
The prosecution maintains that, between September 2014 and April 2015, the person under investigation was working at the Barcelona club as a coach in teams made up of minors. After training games, according to the complaint, he used to enter the children’s locker rooms and, from a bench, he would stare at them as they undressed and showered. On a regular basis, he points out, and making the minors believe that it was a game, the coach made them dance naked in front of him and touched their genitals. He did it when he was alone with the victims. To one of them, according to the complaint, he even tickled her groin while she told him: “Scream like a little whore.”
Position of authority
As this newspaper has learned, the complaint specifies that the investigated He took advantage of the position of authority that being the coach gave him to influence the behavior of children and ensure that they agree to their designs. And not only that, but he also allegedly benefited from the young age of the victims and their lack of maturity in order to camouflage his intentions. In this way, the prosecutor argues, she managed to get the children to normalize touching and see it as a simple game.
This coach’s attitude was repeated in April 2015, when the club organized a campus during Holy Week. One day the person under investigation entered the locker room and made two boys from the junior team strip completely naked and dance in front of him. Meanwhile, he watched them from a bench. One of the minors was only 8 years old. He is one of the victims who has appeared before the prosecution and who appears in the complaint. At that moment, the president of the club opened the door and realized the situation. For this reason, he fired the coach and informed the parents of the minors, who did not file any complaint, the Catalan Football Federation and a foundation that specializes in sexual abuse. Despite this, the man now under investigation continued training, but this time he moved to Badalona.
Detained and double investigated
Related news
The Barcelona Prosecutor’s Office attributes to the accused four crimes of sexual assault on minors under 16 years of age, aggravated by the prevalence of a relationship of superiority. The first judicial news about his actions dates back to September 30, when a report from the Mossos entered the Barcelona police court. That same day, the coach was brought to justice after being arrested for several crimes of sexual assault on minors and for breach of sentence (violation of the disqualification from practicing the profession of contact with minors). At that time, the prosecution filed a complaint and requested the adoption of precautionary measures, such as a prohibition on approaching the victims, which the court agreed to.
The Mossos located three victims after their own investigation opened by the prosecutor’s office
He Court of Instruction number 7 of Barcelona initiated proceedings and referred the two cases that occurred in this city in the 2022-2023 season to a court in Badalona. The magistrate of the Catalan capital provisionally archived the case, without prejudice to its reopening with an eventual presentation by the prosecution of a complaint, since the only victim from Barcelona then identified had reached the age of majority. It was then that prosecutor Alexandra García opened post-procedural investigation proceedings, which can be carried out after the provisional file of a case, and asked the Mossos to investigate the existence of new victims. The police then located the other three minors who appear in the prosecutor’s complaint.