Shamed Manchester City and Real Madrid star Robinho has given his first prison video interview since he started a nine-year prison sentence for rape in Brazil.

The 41-year-old father-of-three, who has been behind bars at Dr Jose Augusto Cesar Salgado Prison in the state of Sao Paulo since March 21 2024, said he was treated just like any other inmate.

The fallen star looked relaxed and healthy in the footage, which was released by a non-profit organisation that helps rehabilitate offenders and featured images of the inside of the prison.

He said: 'My meals and sleeping hours are the same as the other inmates. I have never eaten any different food, nor have I ever received any different treatment. When it's time to work, I do everything here that all the other inmates are also able to do. When we want to play football, we are allowed to do so when there is no work on Sundays.

'I have never received any kind of benefit. Visits are on Saturdays or Sundays. When my wife comes she does not come alone, she comes with my children. The oldest plays, and the two youngest can come. Visits are the same and treatment is the same for everyone.'

Robinho, whose lock-up is better known as P2 Tremembe and has been dubbed the 'Prison for Famous People', branded as 'lies' claims he is a leader at the jail or suffers physiological problems.

He insisted: 'I have never had that, I have never had to take medication, thank God. Despite the difficulty of being in prison, which is normal, thank God I have always had a good head on my shoulders and I am doing everything that all inmates can also do.

'Here, the goal is to re-educate and re-socialise those who have made mistakes. I have never had any kind of leadership role here, or anywhere else. Here, the guards are in charge, as I told you, and we, the inmates, just obey.

'I am not different because I was a footballer, quite the opposite.

'I've been here a year and a half and I've never had any type of quarrel, even in football when we have a game here.'

Robinho agreed to participate in the video interview - the first time he has been filmed in jail since his incarceration for the January 2013 rape in Italy while he was at AC Milan - despite overnight reports in Brazil saying he had requested a prison transfer.

Brazilian media outlets said the request had been turned down by a judge who ordered the former international to redirect it to prison authorities.

One Brazilian media outlet said Robinho's defence team had suggested three possible alternatives, all prisons in the state of Sao Paulo,

The ex-footballer's request is thought to be linked to a regional government decision to change the type of inmate the prison receives and move towards a more open system where those jailed there can leave during the day and return only at night.

Robinho was imprisoned in Brazil after a court in his homeland decided he should serve the jail sentence handed down to him by an Italian court.

His friend Ricardo Falco entered jail three months after him in June 2024 for the same offence.

Both men were convicted of sexually assaulting an Albanian woman in a club in Milan in January 2013 while he was at AC Milan.

Their failed appeals in Italian courts lasted years and they returned to Brazil while they awaited the final decision after being bailed.

Robinho swapped a luxury seafront home in Santos for 10 days of full isolation after his transfer to jail before being moved to a shared tiny eight square metre cell with another inmate.

Reports in October last year around the time Robinho had been behind bars for seven months said his prison routine revolved around football matches with other inmates once or twice a week, reading groups and classes in basic electronics which will help him reduce the time he has to spend in jail.

A friend of the fallen football star implicated in his rape case was found dead in Brazil in March.

Rudney Gomes' body was discovered in the port city of Santos in the state of Sao Paulo and police said at the time they were treating his death as a suicide after he reportedly plunged from the 11th floor of an apartment block.

Robinho, who named 46-year-old former bodyguard Gomes as one of the men who had sex with the woman he was eventually convicted of sexually assaulting alongside Falco, continues to protest his innocence and claim his rape victim had engaged in a consensual orgy after getting drunk on vodka.

Gomes, accused but never tried over his alleged involvement like three other men named by Robinho, left Italy before he could be summoned to court.

The crime Robinho was convicted over occurred after the footballer met up with friends to celebrate Gomes' 34th birthday at the Sio Cafe where the rape took place.

Gomes had largely remained out of the public eye since the trial's conclusion.