Real Madrid's Raul Asencio and the sex-tape allegations which prosecutors claim warrant a prison sentence

New York Times

3 days ago

Editor's note: This is an updated version of an article that first appeared on The Athletic in May 2025.
On Friday, the Public Prosecutor's Office in Spain called for a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence for Real Madrid defender Raul Asencio over allegedly sharing a sex tape involving a minor.
Three former Madrid youth players are also facing potential charges in the same case. It centres on the filming, allegedly without consent, of a sexual encounter in the private area of a beach club in the Canary Islands in June 2023, as well as the alleged distribution of the video, again without consent.
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Asencio, now 22, was promoted from Madrid's 'B' team in November of last season during an injury crisis in defence and went on to make 46 senior appearances in all competitions.
So, what are the allegations against him, who else is involved, and what has the reaction been like in Spain? The Athletic talked to sources with knowledge of the situation, who all asked to remain anonymous to speak freely about an ongoing legal case, to explain. This is also why comments are turned off on this article.
The events under investigation took place in Puerto Rico, a town on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria, on June 15, 2023, where five players from Madrid's youth academy were on holiday.
There, at the Amadores Beach Club seaside resort, a sexual encounter took place between three of the players and two girls, one of whom was 18 years old, the other under the age of 16.
The case focuses on the alleged recording and sharing of a video of this sexual encounter made on the mobile phone of one of the players, allegedly without consent.
A complaint was filed by the younger of the girls, accompanied by her mother, at Guardia Civil offices in the town of Santa Maria de Guia, close to Las Palmas in the north of Gran Canaria, on September 6, 2023.
Subsequently, the second alleged victim also filed a complaint.
According to their testimony, which was leaked in Spanish media that year, when the girls found out they had been recorded, that same day they asked the players involved to delete the footage.
One of the girls also said, speaking anonymously in an interview with Spanish newspaper Diario AS in September 2023, that the players told them they would delete the footage but had instead 'transferred it to other mobiles'.
According to their leaked testimony, the girls also said they did not find out until August that the footage still existed and was allegedly being shared. They said they found out the footage had not been deleted when a boyfriend of one of their friends, also a member of the Madrid C team, told them he had seen the video.
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On September 15, 2023, several Guardia Civil police officers turned up at Madrid's training facilities, dressed in civilian clothes. There, they asked the director of the youth academy, Manuel Fernandez, to accompany them to the changing rooms.
Three players were arrested — Ferran Ruiz, Juan Rodriguez and Andres Garcia — while Asencio was first questioned as a witness. During the taking of statements, he went from being a witness to being investigated as a suspect.
Ruiz, Rodriguez and Garcia are facing charges over allegedly recording and distributing videos of sexual content of a minor and one other woman. Asencio is facing two charges — allegedly distributing the video without consent, and allegedly sharing a sex tape involving a minor.
The Athletic reported in February that a Spanish court rejected an appeal on behalf of Asencio for the provisional dismissal of the case. Court documents during that appeal confirmed that one of the women was under the age of 16 when the incident took place.
The Athletic first reported in May that Asencio could face criminal proceedings for the alleged sharing of the sex tape involving a minor.
On Friday, the Public Prosecutor's Office in Spain called for a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence for Asencio. The body also called for prison sentences for the three other men.
The Prosecutor's Office alleged in a summary provided to The Athletic that two former Madrid youth players had consensual sexual intercourse with a minor and another girl and recorded images without their consent.
Asencio, who was not present at the time of the incident, is alleged to have asked for these videos and to have shown them to another friend. This would constitute two crimes against privacy, per Article 77 of the Spanish Criminal Code.
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The summary also alleged that the alleged victims were both suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the events and called for Asencio to pay €5,000 (£4,360/$5,792) to each of them. The prosecutor's office also called for sentences of four years and seven months for the three other men and for them to pay a joint total of €25,000 (£21,800/$28,900).
In March, Asencio made brief comments to Television Espanola when he was called up by Spain's national team for the first time. He said: 'Everyone is very aware of what they are doing, so I am very calm.'
Then in May, Asencio made a statement in response to an erroneous court document. It read: 'I have not participated in any behaviour that violated the sexual freedom of any woman, much less of minors. The court order, as far as I am concerned, limits its content to the possible momentary viewing of some images by a third party, without attributing to me any participation in their recording or dissemination.
'The accusation made against me, as expressly stated in the court decision itself, is strictly provisional in nature. Therefore, the presumption of innocence must continue to prevail. In the event that charges are finally brought and an oral trial is opened, I will continue to exercise my defence before the Courts and Tribunals, in which I maintain full confidence, reaffirming that I am not involved in any criminal conduct.'
When contacted by The Athletic on Friday evening, Asencio's representatives said they were trusting justice would prevail.
In May, the court in Gran Canaria signalled its intention to take the case to trial. Asencio and his fellow defendants have two chances to appeal: first to the judge who is ruling on the case and secondly to a superior body in the event they do not agree with that initial decision.
If a trial does take place, it is unclear when it would start, although in Spain, similar cases have previously taken several months to reach that stage, with some even taking up to a year or more.
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Asencio will be tried by a provincial court, as the Public Prosecutor's Office has asked for less than five years in prison for the alleged offences mentioned above.
If they do go to trial, he and the other defendants would have to physically appear in court.
Asencio is a centre-back who joined Madrid's academy in 2017 from Las Palmas, a team from Gran Canaria. He was playing for their reserve team Real Madrid Castilla, mostly made up of youth players, in the Spanish third tier until last November.
That was when a spate of injuries affected every senior centre-back in the first-team squad, leading to Asencio unexpectedly breaking into the starting XI. He went on to feature in Champions League knockout-phase games against Manchester City, Atletico Madrid and Arsenal.
He also played regularly during the recent Club World Cup, although he was suspended after a red card in Madrid's second group game against Pachuca, starting Madrid's last competitive match, a loss to Paris Saint-Germain in that tournament's semi-finals.
The investigation started in September 2023 — when Asencio was still playing for Castilla — and the player has not been removed from the team or squad at any point since for reasons related to the case other than on December 21, 2023, when club sources said the player was withdrawn from consideration for a first-team La Liga match away to Alaves because he had to testify in the investigation the following day.
Madrid have signed fellow centre-back Dean Huijsen this summer while Eder Militao and Antonio Rudiger, who also play that position, both returned to action at the Club World Cup after injuries. David Alaba, another central defender, is also closer to a comeback having been out since April.
Xabi Alonso replaced Carlo Ancelotti, the manager who gave Asencio his debut, at the beginning of July. But there is an expectation that Asencio will continue to play a key role in the short term.
When the investigation became public knowledge in September 2023, Madrid issued a statement which said they had 'learned that a player from Castilla and three players from Real Madrid C have given statements to the Guardia Civil in relation to a complaint about the alleged dissemination of a private video via WhatsApp'. They added: 'When the club has detailed knowledge of the facts, it will take the appropriate measures.'
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Madrid have not publicly commented since. When contacted by The Athletic on Friday night, they declined to comment.
Club sources previously consulted by The Athletic pointed to the presumption of innocence — a key principle of criminal law in Spain enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — when asked about Asencio's situation.
Ruiz, Rodriguez and Garcia all left Madrid last summer. Ruiz moved to Girona, and the club's sporting director, Quique Carcel, said in November, 'I respect the presumption of innocence,' in relation to the investigation. Rodriguez and Garcia joined teams in Spain's third tier (Tarazona and Alcorcon). The trio have not commented on the allegations.
In recent months, some fans at Spanish stadiums, including Real Sociedad's Reale Arena and Alaves' Mendizorroza home, have chanted death threats at Asencio.
In March, Madrid boss Ancelotti said he was not considering dropping the player to protect him after he was targeted during the first leg of their Copa del Rey semi-final tie away to Real Sociedad. 'No, no, no,' Ancelotti said. 'This (the insults) is what shouldn't be happening.'
Referee Jose Maria Sanchez Martinez decided to stop that match momentarily after Madrid captain Vinicius Junior spoke to him to activate La Liga's anti-hate protocol. A message was read out over the loudspeakers asking fans not to shout insults, and Sanchez Martinez included the incident in his report from the game. That same protocol was also activated in the game against Alaves the following month.