Ferran Ruiz and Raul Asencio made their league debuts for Girona and Real Madrid respectively this weekend. This provoked a strong reaction in Spain, where the two players are facing up to five years in prison for offences dating back to June 2023.
On vacation in the Canary Islands in June 2023, four players from Real Madrid’s youth team, including Ferran Ruiz and Raul Asencio, filmed their intimate relations with two girls, one of them underage, without the girls’ consent. The videos were posted on several WhatsApp loops, and the mother of the underage girl decided to lodge a complaint, which led to the players’ arrest and the seizure of their cell phones.
After seizing the players’ phones, the Guardia Civil (Spanish police) implicated the four players at the time, who had distributed the videos and boasted to some of their relatives of their misdeeds. At the time, Real Madrid said it was “taking the necessary measures”, but never sanctioned any of the players. Ferran Ruiz and Raul Asencio, as well as Juan Rodriguez and Andrés Garcia, the other players involved, all face up to five years in prison for recording and distributing the videos.