Joel Domínguez, the stain of Las Palmas on his return to Primera: "He is an abuser and they are rewarding him"
In September 2021, Joel Domínguez had just turned 17 and had not even made his debut in the RFEF Third Division with the UD Las Palmas C team. At that time, this youth squad player, one of the most talented promises of the yellow club, began a relationship with a 15-year-old teenager whom we will call Eva here, a fan of the ball since she was little and the great-niece of a historic Canarian soccer player.. What could have been a naive love, so impregnated with the magic of the first time, soon deteriorated until it degenerated into an abusive relationship.. Today, despite a firm conviction and two other cases pending with the Justice, Joel is preparing to start the preseason with UD Las Palmas, recently promoted to First Division, while Eva -who is not called Eva- fights to get out of hell and continue with a life already torn apart forever.
On March 5, 24 hours after playing 35 minutes with the Las Palmas youth team, Joel's fate would also turn fatally. That Sunday he was arrested at his home in Tamaraceite, where he lives with his mother, after brutally beating Eva. That night, like the next, he would sleep in the dungeon.. Until Tuesday the 7th, the Court for Violence against Women No. 1 of Las Palmas, sentenced him, for a crime of gender violence, to 40 days of community work, one year away and two more without a weapons permit.. He himself had confessed the facts, but the UD did not execute any disciplinary measure against him.
The entity limited itself to emphasizing that the attack had occurred in the “field of her private life”, so the statement did not include a single mention or message of support for Eva. The president of the club, Miguel Ángel Ramírez, also did not allude to the victim on June 9, when he confirmed Domínguez among the footballers who will start working under the orders of Francisco Javier García Pimienta. “If we have not thrown him out, it is because we believe in him sportingly and we understand that he is a player with significant potential,” argued the top yellow shareholder, who already entered 41 million euros between 2017 and 2019 for the transfers of Roque Mesa (Swansea). , Jonathan Viera (Guoan) and Pedri (FC Barcelona).
“Something terrifying”
In light of these facts, the atmosphere on the island has been heating up in recent weeks. And in the crossfire, between explicit denunciations and deafening silences, some questions arise: Does Joel need another chance to rehabilitate himself? What should be the commitment of UD Las Palmas against gender violence? Does the club normalize the presence of a convicted aggressor and with two other open processes, for breach of the restraining order and for psychological violence?
Faced with these issues, Margarita Alejo, Eva's lawyer, offers EL MUNDO the perspective of her defense. “Joel's call for the preseason is something terrifying, because it seems that they are rewarding him,” explains the lawyer, who defines the character of the footballer as “controlling and very jealous.”. “Someone dominant, capable of doing very wild things”. In fact, the psychologists who worked on the investigation diagnosed Eva with traumatic shock, distortion of reality, emotional dependence and Stockholm syndrome.. “At the beginning, what surprised me the most was that he told us that he did not want to upset his football career,” adds Alejo about the minor's struggle to escape the nightmare. That stage over, today Eva has opened her eyes and she keeps repeating to herself: “How could she be so submissive?”. Not uncommon in victims of abuse.
Domínguez, for his part, also envisions other horizons. She has just completed a course on gender violence and can't wait to train with the elders. «Since he was four years old, Joel's life has been football and his dream is to play in the first team. Due to a specific error we are not going to throw the boy's future overboard. Because, if he doesn't play, he doesn't do anything with his life,” Víctor Brito, the man who took over his defense at the end of April to replace José María Aranda, assures this newspaper. «After the bombardment of lies and half truths we have decided to change our strategy. We are not going to shut up. We are going to put everyone in their place, “he warns.
“He made a mistake and was judged”
Alicia Pérez, Domínguez's representative and visible head of the Lilium by APS agency, adds to this reproachful tone. «We are so tired of all this… But I can't tell you more. We will only speak when we manage to clean up our image”, Pérez ditch, very close to the corridors of power of the Nuevo Insular.
According to his own environment, the boy has also suffered episodes of anxiety. He is afraid of going out and receiving insults. Or debut with the first team and be booed by his fans. “He made a mistake and he has already been judged for it.. Now he intends to move on with his life, even if they want to destroy him civilly. He is aware of what happened and his repentance is sincere.. Enough of lynching. Leave him alone, because he has taken note and he is not going to repeat it again, ”Brito proclaims.. About the prematureness of this assessment, it is worth asking the victim's family.
I am not going to speak out of revenge, but to give visibility to a very serious problem that is being tried to whitewash.
Mara López, Eva's mother, attends EL MUNDO after “two days crying and without the strength to see anyone”. “But I am not going to speak out of revenge, but to give visibility to a very serious problem that is being tried to whiten,” starts López, a trained criminologist and worker in a center for minors.. By a tragic wink of fate, Mara has given her life to educate minors at risk of exclusion. Among them, abusers. Today, after a year off work, he still lacks the strength to return to everyday life.. And she can't even pronounce Joel's name. So when referring to Domínguez, he always opts for the same filler. «From the club and from their environment they have promoted a campaign to victimize the young man, who has not made a mistake, but a crime. They talk about reinsertion, but the young man has neither been in prison nor does he have a problem with his surroundings. The young man has to be treated and the board should have forced him to apologize,” López abounds..
When this newspaper asks about the aggressor's regret, the victim's mother reels off a string of shocking episodes. Of recent videos in which Joel makes fun of the mistreatment of others, in the middle of a party, where he makes murky accusations about the nocturnal habits of the Las Palmas first team. “On May 16, he appeared at my mother's house, 83 years old, who lives in a nearby town, screaming with his head out of the car.. And I have not seen that he has apologized, ”reveals Mara.
Joel Domínguez, in the City of Justice of Las Palmas.
The climate of fracture that is palpable in Las Palmas in no way resembles that of a city that should still be swimming in the euphoria of the rise. After trying to obtain, unsuccessfully, the official version of the club, this newspaper made a dozen calls between its clubs. Only three were served. Two of them, to excuse themselves, and the other, to charge harshly against the rest. “I'm only going to say two words: zero tolerance,” reveals JMR, president of Sentimiento Amarillo. A subscriber for 36 years, with the UD shield tattooed on his skin, this supporter of the club considers that the rest of the groups are limited to “continuing calmly”, to the tune set by the president. Ramírez, a humble guy who started selling fruit in a van and became a millionaire with the private security business, has never left anyone indifferent.. Joel's case is the latest example.
“Last summer we also wanted to talk to the club, but they didn't receive us.. Through a common acquaintance, we passed them the messages my daughter had on her mobile, but they told us she was a minor and they couldn't do anything,” Mara recalls.. “It is evident that Ramírez has no interest in the victim, but neither in the young man.. I am very sorry that he has to be so exposed to whistles when he receives the ball, “concludes López.
“Shoves, kicks and strong hold”
Yesterday, Domínguez spoke for the first time about the events, in an interview for the newspaper Tiempo de Canarias. In it, he was “very sorry” and claimed to have “learned” from the mistake. He also apologized to his victim, whom he admitted to having given a “push”. A somewhat sweetened version of what can be read in the sentence signed by Judge Luis Fernando Ocaña García, to which this newspaper has had access.
In his proven facts, Ocaña declares that the soccer player, “moved by the purpose of causing an impairment to the physical integrity of the victim,” gave him “several blows in the form of shoving, kicking, and forcefully holding his shoulders.”. Likewise, the magistrate maintains that the minor “did not want to report, did not testify against her partner in the Violence Court, did not want to be recognized by the forensic doctor or take criminal and civil actions against the defendant.”
If from a referent like the UD this matter is whitewashed, what reaction can we expect among the citizens?
“My daughter did not want to be explored because at that time she was still defending her attacker,” says López. “If we can finally recover the deleted conversations from their cell phones, one can read: “Because of you I broke a finger,” “reveals the mother, with a vivid memory, without ever losing sight of the decisive intervention, as a witness, of a plainclothes policeman. And Joel's kicks, with her on the floor, “lifting her up by the hair, pushing her against the phones and putting her inside.”
The mother's story causes more than outrage among feminist groups on the island. “All this causes us a lot of astonishment and rejection,” says Mey Ung, president of the Association of Young Women of Gran Canaria, Ágora Violeta.. “We do not understand how a great value generator, like UD, rewards a convicted player, promoting him to the first team and withdraws any show of support for the victim himself.. If from a referent of this magnitude you whitewash this matter, what reaction can we expect among the citizens? ”, asks Ung.
To the criticisms against his management, Ramírez will have to add the tangled judicial horizon that awaits him in the coming weeks. Besieged since October 2020, when the Prosecutor's Office asked him for 21 years in prison and a fine of 105.4 million euros for five crimes against the Public Treasury and three more against Social Security, the president of UD Las Palmas must sit in the bench on the 4th of july. Just six days later, Joel will train for the first time with the first team at the Ciudad Deportiva.