On Monday morning, Spain will play the Czech Republic in their first UEFA Euro 2016 game. But at the moment, Spain’s goalkeeper, David De Gea, is facing some very serious accusations as a result of documents released by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo early Friday.
According to the documents, a protected witness in a criminal case involving Spanish pornography producer Ignacio Allende Fernandez—who is better known as “Torbe” and was arrested in April on charges of child pornography, sexual exploitation, sexual aggression, and more—gave testimony and accused De Gea of helping to orchestrate a sexual assault in 2012. The witness told police that Fernandez forced her and another woman to have sexual relations with two soccer players from Spain’s U-21 team at a hotel in Madrid and that De Gea was the one who arranged for the women to meet up with the players. She told police De Gea was not involved with the alleged sexual assault itself, but she reportedly said that her and the other woman were threatened with physical violence after they initially refused to take part in the sexual encounter.
Spanish newspaper El Diariospoke with police sources who linked Athletic Bilbao midfielder Iker Muniain and Real Madrid midfielder Isco Alarcon Suarez to the event. Both played with De Gea on Spain’s UEFA Under-21 Championship team in 2013. El Diario is also reporting that the witness identified Muniain as one of the players involved in the alleged assault.
On Friday afternoon, De Gea denied all allegations made by the witness. “The first person who was surprised by this news story was me,” he said at a press conference on Friday. “It’s a lie. I’m the first to be surprised by the news. I want to deny it. It’s a lie, and it’s false. Nothing more.”
Sky Sports reporter Guillem Balague is reporting that De Gea will not leave the Spanish national team in light of the allegations:
Muniain’s agent Txus Medina spoke with The Guardian and denied any knowledge about the witness’ testimony. “We do not know anything at all about this case,” he said. “Neither the police nor the courts have been in touch to request any kind of information.”
Isco also distanced himself from the reports in an Instagram post he put up on Friday afternoon:
Here is a rough translation of Isco's post:
A Spanish federation media chief has told various publications that the federation does not have any comment on the alleged incident.
