The Antony situation just went from really bad already, to much much worse. On Thursday, two more women came forward to publicly accuse the Brazilian football star of physically abusing them.
The 23-year-old Manchester United forward has already been accused of assaulting his ex-girlfriend Gabriela Cavallin on four different occasions, and these claims are being investigated by police in Sao Paulo and Manchester.
Cavallin, who first came forward in June, made additional claims on Monday, and has forgone her right to anonymity. On Tuesday, the Brazilian football association dropped Antony from their roster for this period of international competition.
United issued a statement on Wednesday saying they are taking this matter very seriously, but they refused to comment on whether or not the winger is available.
However, he is included in their official Champions League roster, which came out earlier this week.
Antony has consistently maintained his innocence, and he denies any wrongdoing.
By coming forward in the media, the two new (or additional) domestic violence accusers have also waived their right to remain anonymous.
The Daily Mail details the new allegations:
“Law student Rayssa de Freitas claims that she needed hospital treatment following an incident in May of last year when she was attacked by Antony and Mallu Ohana – the ex-wife of Brazil player Dudu – in Antony’s Land Rover after the three left a Sao Paulo nightclub.
Ingrid Lana, a 33-year-old banker, has alleged in an interview with Record TV in Brazil that Antony was aggressive towards her in October.”
At first, it was easy to compare the situation surrounding Antony to what happened with Mason Greenwood, who will never play for the club again.
(He’s currently on loan at Getafe for the season) After all, Antony was signed, for a whopping 85 million GBP in 2022 as a potential replacement for Greenwood.
However, the more we learn, the more we realize how different these situations really are. With Antony, the club itself may be implicated, as they have been accused of covering up an incident of domestic violence.
According to ESPN:
it is alleged that Antony called a United employee to attend after Cavallin had sustained injuries in a Manchester hotel room. It is further alleged that the club employee arranged for a private doctor to visit Cavallin so the influencer and DJ would not need to go to hospital, where questions would have been asked about how the injury occurred.”
While United have been slow to take disciplinary action thus far, don’t be surprised if an announcement is made soon that he’s suspended for the next matches that follow this international break.
At this point, given how serious all these accusations are, his future with the club has to be very much in doubt. The same goes for Jadon Sancho, but for very different reasons. We covered that in the next post.
Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
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