Who is Robinho’s wife Vivian Guglielmetti and how many children do they have?
THE FORMER Man City footballer has been told he must serve a nine year prison sentence for sexually assaulting a woman in Milan.
Italy issued an international arrest warrant for Robinho seven years ago, but the former Premier League star has managed to dodge it so far.
Who is Robinho’s wife Vivian Guglielmetti?
Back when Robinho was still the Premier-League’s highest paid player, he married his childhood sweetheart.
The pair had been together for an incredible 12 years prior to tying the knot in July 2009.
Their love story began when they were just teenagers, and they married in their early 20s.
However, Vivian revealed that she had postponed their wedding when Robinho was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a nightclub in Leeds earlier that year.
Vivian said she only rescheduled it after the case was dropped, believing him to be innocent.
The pair did separate once, in 2011, albeit for a very brief period, and it was never revealed why.
Robinho and Vivian have remained together since – despite Robinho’s current convictions.
Although the footballer has maintained that he is innocent, he has said that his only mistake is having cheated on his wife.
But the allegations broke Vivian, who revealed said she knew nothing.
She told police: “I stood there like a horned, stupid woman who doesn’t know anything.”
Yet, despite all of this, the pair still live together.
How many children does Robinho have?
The pair have three children, two sons and a daughter, who live with them in Santos, just outside of Sao Paulo in Brazil.
Robson Jr. Guglielmetti de Souza, named after the former footballer, was their firstborn son.
He was born in 2007, and was 18-months-old at the time of his parent’s wedding.
After Robson Jr. came Gianluca, who was born in 2011.
Robinho and Vivian also have a daughter, who was born in 2015.
Where is Robinho now?
Robinho is currently in Santos, outside of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
He was made to hand his passport over to Brazilian authorities in March of last year.
As Brazil does not extradite nationals, Italy had been seeking for him to be imprisoned in Brazil.
After being convicted of charges of rape in Italy in 2017, a Brazilian court has now decided he must serve out his prison sentence.
It is thought that he may appeal to Brazil’s Supreme Court and demand a retrial in Brazil.
What has Robinho been charged with?
In 2017, a court in Milan found Robinho and five other Brazilian men guilty of gang-raping a woman in a nightclub in 2013.
Robinho was accused of plying her with alcohol before raping her.
He has continued to deny any wrongdoing insisting that his relations with the woman were entirely consensual.
In an interview, Robinho told Brazilian outlet UOL: “A girl approached me, we started to have contact with her consent and mine too… then I went home.
“When she approached me, she wasn’t drunk, because she remembers my name, she remembers who I am.
“The person who drinks doesn’t remember anything. She remembers.”
Most recently, the footballer has been arguing that racism in Italy is to blame for his conviction.
He claimed: “I played only four years in Italy and I got tired of seeing stories of racism.
“Unfortunately, that exists to this day. [The rape case] was in 2013, now we are in 2024.
“The same people who don’t do anything against it [racism] are the ones who sentenced me.”
But, just yesterday his own country took a look at Italy’s request.
And nine of the 15 ministers voted in favour of the player serving his sentence in his home country – forming a simple majority and sealing the footballer’s fate.
They did not judge whether the player is guilty or innocent, but whether he should serve the sentence in Brazil or not.
Robinho is now set to be incarcerated immediately, Globo reports.
Robinho's rape case: a timeline
The rape case involving Brazilian footballer Robinho spans several years. Here's a brief timeline:
- January 22, 2013: Robinho was one of a group of six men convicted of sexually assaulting an Albanian woman in a club during his stint for AC Milan.
- 2014: Brazilian media reported on the allegations against Robinho, but no formal charges were filed at that time.
- 2017: Robinho was found guilty of sexual assault by an Italian court and sentenced to nine years in prison. However, he denied the charges and appealed the verdict.
- 2020: After the appeal process, Robinho’s sentence was upheld by the Italian court. But due to the statute of limitations in Italy, he was not extradited to serve his sentence.
- 2022: Robinho’s prison sentence is ratified.
- March 2023: Robinho surrendered his passport to authorities.
- November 2023: Italian prosecutors said they felt Robinho should serve his time in Brazil.
- March 20, 2024: Brazil’s Superior Court formed a simple majority and voted for Robinho to serve the sentence in his home country.