Champions League winner sentenced after sexually abusing young child

23 November 2023 , 10:22

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Tarik Oulida, the former Ajax and Sevilla midfielder (Image: Getty Images)

Champions League winner Tarik Oulida has been convicted of sexually abusing a child by a court on Spain’s Costa del Sol.

The former Ajax and Sevilla midfielder was handed a two year, six-month prison sentence which he will not serve as part of a plea bargain agreement - because it has been substituted for a 10-year ban on entering Spain.

Dutchman Oulida, 49, the son of Moroccan immigrants who was born in Amsterdam, has also been given a restraining order preventing him from going within 500 metres of his victim.

Malaga’s Provincial Court, which sentenced the retired midfielder, said a compensation payment of €10,000 (£8,720) he has already made to the victim contributed to its decision not to make him do jail time. The deal done between Oulida’s defence lawyer and a state prosecutor, which involved the former footballer admitting the crime he was accused of, means he will not be able to appeal the sentence and conviction.

The youngster he targeted was asleep when he got into bed and sexually assaulted the child.

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The crime occurred in 2011 but was only recently scheduled for trial before the plea bargain deal was formalised.

A four-page document confirming Oulida's conviction said it had been proved that “on an undetermined date in 2011, he took advantage of the fact he was alone with the child and got into bed while the child was asleep, began to touch the child's private parts and penetrated the child with one of his fingers.”

Tarik Oulida during the Champions League match between Ajax Amsterdam and AEK Athens on December 12, 1994 (Getty Images)

Oulida, who holds both Dutch and Moroccan nationality, came through the youth ranks at Ajax. He joined Sevilla in the mid-nineties and spent three seasons at the Spanish side, which was relegated from the top flight La Liga in the 1996-97 season while he was still at the club before he moved to Japanese side Nagoya Grampus. He retired from football after returning to his homeland following a spell in France and a second period in Japan.

It has not been made clear when Oulida was first accused of his crime. An investigating magistrate is understood to have launched a criminal probe in 2017.

In Spain such probes, which take place in their initial stages behind closed doors and lead to charges and trial where there is evidence a crime has been committed, can take years to conclude.

Gerard Couzens