Joel Domínguez, convicted of beating his girlfriend, will do the preseason with Las Palmas

2023-06-13 10:40:17

Joel Domínguez, 18 years old, is one of the most important assets of his generation in the Canary Islands. The young promise of UD Las Palmas will do the preseason with the first team, recently promoted to the First Division, while the yellow team is rained with criticism for the decision. The group led by García Pimienta from the bench and Miguel Ángel Ramírez from the offices, has decided that the economic interests as well as the talent of the player with the ball weigh more than the sentence that he has for sexist violence against his girlfriend, a minor, to which he gave a beating and for which he was convicted.

The player acknowledged the facts on March 7 before the judge, and was sentenced to 40 days of work for the community and a restraining order was placed on him. The club takes its first steps in the First Division involved in controversy, and in what the Gran Canaria Feminist Network considers a “total lack of commitment” in the fight against gender violence. Meanwhile, the entity distances itself from the controversy and insists that it will help reintegrate the player: “He has already served the sanction,” he said in a statement.

The club “believes sportingly” in him, wants to help him “reintegrate” and is going to give him a chance. «Joel Domínguez is a boy who was wrong, who was convicted and who is serving the sentence that was imposed. What we have to try is to help him reintegrate into society. If we had wanted to kick him out, we would have kicked him out,” the club’s president, Miguel Ángel Ramírez, said at a press conference when asked about the presence of this youth in the preseason.

“We understand that he is a player with significant potential. Why don’t we keep promoting it? From there, it depends on whether you take advantage of the opportunity or not. Unfortunately, there is a long list of Canarian footballers who have not taken advantage of the opportunities”, argued the president of the Sports Union.

From the Feminist Network of Gran Canaria, the Unión Deportiva Las Palmas and all its public and private sponsors have been asked to “be aware of the fundamental role played by football in general, and the UD Las Palmas club in particular”, more now since First Division, the highest football category in our country, with thousands of followers, in the collective imagination as a generator of values. «Among the values ​​of respect and rejection of racism should also include disapproval of gender violence, a scourge that must be condemned with deeds, and not just with words”, he said.

The Canarian leader highlighted that the Unión Deportiva Las Palmas, through its Foundation, has signed a collaboration agreement with the Ministry of the Interior, through the General Secretariat of Penitentiary Institutions, to work with inmates in prisons in the Canary Islands. “In recent years, various activities have been carried out with inmates of the Las Palmas I Penitentiary Center,” he explained.

In addition, since 2018 it has launched a soccer team specifically aimed at working with minors with judicial measures, in collaboration with Juvenile Court No. 1 of Las Palmas, and has carried out activities with minors subject to measures courts in collaboration with various NGOs dedicated to working with them.