Rape charges against four footballers have been dropped by a court in Argentina

An Argentine court on Tuesday dismissed charges against four footballers accused of sexually assaulting a journalist while playing for Premier League club Velez Sarsfield last year.

All four were suspended from the Buenos Aires team after the claim.

The case arose after a 24-year-old sports journalist alleged she was raped after being invited by Uruguay international Sebastian Sosa to a hotel room in Tucuman, Argentina, in March last year.

She said Paraguayan midfielder Jose Florentin and Argentines Braian Cufre and Abiel Osorio were waiting in the room.

The accuser said that after a few drinks she felt dizzy, lay down on the bed and was raped.

Cufre and Florentín had been charged with rape, Sosa as a secondary participant in the same crime, and Osorio with sexual abuse.

But a judge in Tucuman in northwestern Argentina dismissed the charges in a closed-door hearing on Tuesday, after which the prosecutor told local media she planned to appeal.

Sosa plays for Juventud in Uruguay, Florentin and Cufre for Central Cordoba, and Osorio for Defensa y Justicia, also in Argentina.

Published on December 31, 2025