Six Leicester City players, including Scottish internationals Paul Dickov and Matt Elliott, were told last night that they must remain in custody following allegations of sexual assault at the Spanish resort of La Manga.
Keith Gillespie, Lilian Nalis, Frank Sinclair, James Scowcroft, Dickov and Elliott are expected to appear in court again today.
Three other players were released following a day-long court hearing at nearby Cartagena. Steffan Freund was released without charge while Nikos Dabizas and Danny Coyne were provisionally released to have their cases heard today.
Tim Davies, the club's chief executive, said: ''It has come as a tremendous shock to all our players. They are vigorously denying everything.''
After the statement Micky Adams, Leicester manager, said he did not wish to comment but said: ''I am devastated.''
The players, who were on a warm weather training break on the Costa del Sol, are alleged to have forced their way into a hotel room where three women claimed they were sexually assaulted.
The alleged victims, all German tourists, were found to have injuries to various parts of their body when examined by doctors at Alicante General Hospital, said the police.
The incident is the latest sex scandal involving football in recent months and is the second time Leicester City have made headlines while staying at the exclusive La Manga resort.
Nine players were arrested on Wednesday after the women complained to police on Monday, police said.
Four were arrested for sexual assault and breaking and entering, one for assault and breaking and entering, and three for breaking and entering and leaving a crime scene without offering assistance.
The ninth, Freund, the German midfielder, was earlier released after being questioned over leaving a crime scene without offering assistance.
Elliott, who last played for Scotland in 2001, was arrested in connection with breaking and entering and leaving a crime scene without offering assistance, Sinclair with sexual assault and breaking and entering, and Coyne with breaking and entering and leaving a crime scene without offering assistance.
It is understood Dickov faced allegations of sexual aggression and entering the hotel room.
The women had been intending to return to Germany, but were persuaded by police to remain in the country to be interviewed, police said.
As well as their injuries, the three women gave the police a bracelet, which was apparently broken by one of the aggressors, as well as torn underpants.
The women separately identified by photograph the footballers alleged to have carried out the assaults.
According to an account given by a member of the hotel staff, the footballers had arrived that night apparently drunk and fighting among themselves and other customers.
The rest of the squad cut short the trip and flew back to England on Wednesday.
Leicester City issued a statement which said: ''The club is co-operating fully with the authorities in their investigations but, as these investigations are still ongoing, is not in a position to make any further comment at this stage.''
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article