A mother in a Madrid neighborhood walks the streets in distress, headed to a school to pick up the volleyball coach who teaches her ten-year-old daughter. She is unsure what to say or how to confront him. She stops to ask two municipal police officers for help and reports that her daughter has been sexually assaulted by the volleyball coach. The incident took place on the afternoon of January 19.
“I have something to tell you, mom.”
The reconstruction of events relies on interviews with those close to the children and case sources. The mother tells the officers she went to pick up her daughter from volleyball class, but on the way home her daughter spoke very little. Once at home, she found her daughter in the bathroom, cleaning a bloodstain. She then lay in bed and cried. She whispered, “I have something to tell you, mom.”
She explained that the daughter had been touched and harmed in her intimate areas by her volleyball coach. This marked the start of the investigation against Alexis, a 50-year-old Venezuelan man who had sought asylum in Spain, with six minor victims aged eight to ten filing reports.
“Just tell them I measured you.”
The girl later accompanied her mother to Hospital 12 de Octubre. The on-call physician found an injury in the genital area and alerted the court. The child recounted that the coach had taken her to the bathroom supposedly to measure her. There, he placed a hand on her genitals and warned her not to tell her parents, saying that if she spoke up, he would go to prison, insisting he had done nothing wrong.
After the hospital visit, the mother and daughter went to UFAM, the National Police unit that investigates sexual offenses against minors. The girl described a rainy Madrid afternoon, with a volleyball class held in a gymnasium for eleven or twelve children.
“The coach made a noise while breathing.”
The coach called her aside, separated her from peers, and claimed he would measure her. He led her to the bathroom. She recalls being pressed against a wall, having her arms and waist measured, and the coach squeezing her breasts, lifting her chin, and measuring her neck. He then touched her beneath her clothing and her underwear. “The coach breathed heavily,” she said.
She later explained that the coach told her not to tell anyone, not even her parents, or he would go to prison. He then returned her to her peers and named several other children as potential team members, offering chocolates and presenting himself as a trusted figure.
Other girls
The victim’s mother spoke with other parents whose children took volleyball classes with the same coach, noting that the abuse could have happened to other girls under the pretext of measuring them in the bathroom.
investigators identified five additional potential victims—a girl and a boy aged eight to ten, all students of Alexis, a Venezuelan coach who sought asylum in Spain. He had worked for three years as a volleyball instructor at two schools.
“Where is your belly button?”
One girl described entering the bathroom while the coach spoke with another girl. She was measured for growth, asked about her shoulders, and told that foot part of her body would be touched. She recounted being led to touch her lower body gradually, with the coach signaling where her belly button was and insisting, multiple times, on touching that area with a red tape.
Another primary school girl remembered that the coach would give hugs and kisses almost every day, sometimes from behind, touching her chest. The girl’s mother had noticed changes in her daughter for months and the girl began stuttering when recounting events, something never seen before.
Fear of school
Another eight-year-old girl’s mother noticed a shift in her daughter’s behavior over several months. The child feared using the bathroom, cried often, and dreaded going to school. A tutor meeting was requested, but the school said nothing unusual was happening. The girl described receiving frequent gifts from the coach, including sweets, a heart-shaped keychain, and photos of each child.
“Take down your pants.”
A girl reported that during a practice session the coach asked her to accompany him to a room where balls are stored. There he touched her intimate parts and asked her to lower her pants. She refused, as her parents had told her those acts were wrong. The man then pressed close and rubbed his intimate parts against her.
“The coach is a pervert.”
Another girl told her family and later the police that the coach appeared friendly and affectionate, always in tracksuits, fidgeting and touching himself in front of others. She recounted a separate incident with a friend where they were in the ball room for a long time; her friend later said the coach was a “pervert” who had touched her. A ten-year-old student also reported that the coach was especially kind to girls, giving hugs, candies, and Christmas gifts such as a heart-shaped volleyball pendant with their photo inside.
A ten-year-old boy, also a student of Alexis, described him as particularly affectionate with girls, giving hugs and treats and sometimes last-minute gifts. He claimed the coach had touched him on the buttocks on one occasion.
“That isn’t true.”
Alexis was arrested on January 19. He refused to answer questions or to provide a DNA sample, though he did testify before the presiding judge. His account to investigators was that the alleged touching never occurred, and if it did, it happened unintentionally.
He asserted that the measurements were routine checks to fill in the municipal growth form and to monitor growth, claiming he measured all students, always over their clothes. The judge ordered him held in provisional detention with a ban on approaching the minors.
Alexis had been associated with the volleyball club since the 2022-2023 season, teaching at two schools and two municipal facilities in Madrid. There had been no prior complaints against him. He was part of a Madrid City program promoting school sports, and the Madrid Volleyball Federation selects coaches for such programs [Citation].