Update: Former Brazil and Man City star, Robinho is arrested in homeland to serve nine-year prison sentence after being convicted of gang rape

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Former Brazil and Manchester City winger, Robinho has been arrested in his homeland to serve a nine-year prison sentence for rape. 

Robinho, 40, was arrested at his flat in Santos on Thursday, March 21.

He was found guilty in Italy in 2017 for his part in the gang rape of an Albanian woman at a nightclub in Milan in January 2013.

The former Premier League player, whose real name is Robson De Souza, was one of six men found guilty of assaulting the Albanian woman.

In 2020 an appeals court confirmed the conviction and the Supreme Court in Rome dismissed his final appeal against the conviction in January 2022.  

Robinho claims he is innocent and has been living in Brazil for the past seven years.

His arrest comes after the Italian government failed to get him extradited, so they requested that he serve his sentence in his homeland. 

A Brazilian court upheld the request on Wednesday.

Nine of the court’s 15 ministers had voted in favour of the decision to incarcerate the footballer in Brazil. 

On Thursday, his request to pause his detention was snubbed by a Supreme Court judge.