The former Chilean soccer player Jorge Valdivia (Venezuela, 41 years old) was remanded in preventive detention this Tuesday after the Eastern Prosecutor’s Office of the Chilean capital requested the formalization of the investigation against him for the alleged crime of rape. The measure was determined by the Eighth Guarantee Court, which has considered that the former athlete, who was detained during the early hours of the morning in Santiago, “is a danger to the security of society.” Judge Ely Rothfeld has set a deadline for the investigation of 90 days.
The complainant is a woman who works as a tattoo artist and has reported that the attack occurred on Sunday, October 20, after a meeting in a restaurant in the municipality of Providencia, in the eastern area, where they drank alcohol. They then went to the woman’s apartment, who said she woke up on Monday without remembering anything. Then, she filed a complaint with the Flagrancy department of the Eastern Metropolitan Prosecutor’s Office and went to the Legal Medical Service (SML).
Valdivia issued a public statement Monday night denying that he sexually abused the woman. “I had a consensual relationship with an adult woman, and for that reason I am going to make myself available to the Public Ministry,” he said. “I will collaborate in everything so that this can be clarified as soon as possible,” he added.
The lawyer representing Valdivia, Erika Maira, has told the Chilean media, after the formalization hearing in the Justice Centerthat as a defense it does not share the position “of either the Prosecutor’s Office or the court in order to interpret that the interactions and the way in which the events occurred constitute a violation nor using deprivation of meaning, which is what the Prosecutor’s Office maintains.” “We maintain, we insist, that here there are consensual sexual relations that develop in a context of an invitation to the complainant’s house and it is in that context that this interaction occurs,” he added.
The Management of Prisa Media, where Valdivia was a sports commentator, has indefinitely suspended his participation until justice resolves his legal situation.
Valdivia was one of the members of the call golden generation of Chilean football. He was part of the teams that competed in the 2010 South Africa and 2014 World Cups in Brazil. He was also the champion of the 2015 Copa América, the first international title won by the national team. His career as a professional soccer player began as a player for Colo Colo, a team with which he won five titles. Abroad, the Chilean wore the shirts of Rayo Vallecano, Servette of Switzerland and Al-Ain of the United Arab Emirates, among others. The greatest sporting successes were achieved as a player of the Brazilian palm treesinstitution in which he won four local championships. He retired in 2022 when he was part of Necaxa of Mexico.