The National Association of Professional Football (ANFP) of Chili announced the “immediate sports suspension” of the footballers arrested this Thursday for an alleged group rape committed on a young woman in September 2021 when they were part of the club’s youth team Copperloa.
The governing body of Chilean football expressed in a statement “its total repudiation and condemnation of any act of violence as well as all types of conduct that constitute sexual abuse, sexual harassment, discrimination and mistreatment” and conveyed “its total willingness to collaborate with the investigation”.
“As soon as the ANFP became formally aware of these serious events, it requested the Cobreloa Sports Club to activate the protocol established in Decree No. 22, on the prevention and punishment of sexual abuse, sexual harassment, discrimination and mistreatment in sporting activity. of the country,” he explained in the statement. Furthermore, he added, “he instructed the club to act with the diligence and speed that this serious case deserves.”
Read also
The nine detainees, whose identities have not yet been made public, allegedly committed the crime when they were minors and played for the Calama club, located 1,500 kilometers from the capital. Two of them currently play for the club and were arrested while they were training and separated from the team until the facts are clarified.
Regarding the other seven detainees, it is known that they are former youth players of the team, but it is unknown if they are currently part of another club. The complaint is based on an event that occurred on September 21, 2021, when the victim, who was 18 years old at the time, attended as a guest a celebratory barbecue at the club’s training center, where she was allegedly attacked “in a pack” by the football players.
The case had initially been closed after the complainant desisted, while the Cobreloa club had issued a statement last April in which it assured that “it was not possible to prove that group abuse or rape had been committed.”
The authorities ask for respect for the victim
The Chilean Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, assessed the arrests in her X account and said that these “are relevant to reinforcing confidence in the institutions and in the advancement of a process that must continue until justice is achieved.” Meanwhile, the Minister of Women, Antonia Orellana, sent a message “to public opinion and especially to the sports environment to respect the judicial process and the victim,” who she reported is being represented by a private lawyer.
“It seems like good news to us that after three years of the complaint, this case is moving forward and we believe that the parliamentary investigative commission has definitely played a role in it,” he added in his statement to the Chilean media.
A group of Chilean congressmen from different benches led by deputies Marisela Santibáñez and Andrés Giordano, formed a special commission to investigate this and other cases of abuse reported in the field of sports due to possible violations of the Law Against Sexual Abuse, Sexual Harassment, Discrimination and Abuse in national sports activity.
