The former Brazil international footballer Dani Alves has been allowed out on bail having served 14 months of a four-and-a-half-year sentence for rape. One of the world’s most decorated footballers, Alves, 40, was found guilty last month of raping a young woman in the VIP bathroom of a Barcelona nightclub in the early hours of 31 December 2022. In a surprise move last week, a Barcelona court agreed to his request for a provisional release while his appeal against his conviction was heard, on the condition that he posted bail of €1m, handed over his Spanish and Brazilian passports, remained in the country and presented himself to court on a weekly basis. It took Alves until Monday to present the funds, meaning he remained in jail while his entourage raised the money. “We hereby inform you that the deposit of Daniel Alves’s bail has been registered in the accounts of the 21st section of the Barcelona court,” the court said in a statement on Monday. Several hours later, Alves was seen leaving the Brians 2 prison, north-west of Barcelona. He was accompanied by his lawyer Inés Guardiola and was met by a picket of prison workers protesting about pay and conditions. Alves had been in jail since he was arrested in January 2023. He made several attempts before his conviction to get bail, but they were turned down partly on the basis that he was considered a flight risk since Brazil does not extradite citizens sentenced in other countries. The prosecution says he remains a flight risk. The appeal process could take months to complete. Public prosecutors and the victim’s lawyer, Ester Garcia, have appealed against the decision to grant Alves bail. “This sends the message that there is justice for the rich, and even if there is a conviction, if you pay bail there are no criminal consequences,” Garcia said last week. “This is a very dangerous message for society,” she added, saying her client was “very outraged, very despondent and very frustrated”. The court’s decision to grant bail also drew criticism from Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who said money “cannot buy the offence that a man does to a woman by committing rape”. He said: “When sex is something that is done between two, it has to be allowed and consented to by two. This, in fact, is a crime.” During the trial, the victim, who testified behind a screen to protect her identity, said Alves violently forced her to have sex in a private bathroom of the nightclub despite her begging him to let her go, which prosecutors said caused her “anguish and terror”. Alves denied wrongdoing and his lawyers argued that the victim had been “glued” to the player while dancing at the nightclub, saying there was “sexual tension” between them. But in its 61-page decision, the court said that did not mean “that she consented to anything that might have subsequently happened”. In 2022, Spain’s government passed new legislation – nicknamed the “only yes means yes” law – that strengthened the penal code against rape by requiring explicit consent for sex acts, a move long demanded by assault survivors and women’s rights groups.