Ex Spanish youth NT coach charged with sexual assault of a minor / News - Basketnews.com

Mario Lopez is charged with sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl in 1998. The abuse lasted for three years, featuring multiple acts of sexual penetration.

Credit: Federación Española de Baloncesto/Alberto Nevado Credit Federación Española de Baloncesto/Alberto Nevado

Spanish basketball is dealing with a public image crisis, as former Spanish women's national teams' head coach, Mario Lopez, is charged with sexual assault of a minor.

Lopez, who currently works as a managing director at Lointek Gernika, a women's basketball club in the top Spanish division, Liga Femenina Endesa, is said to have sexually abused a then-13-year-old back in 1998.

The entire abuse lasted for three years until the winter of 2001, Isabel Valdes from El Pais reports, citing court documents of a case filed in Gernika. The victim was 13 at the start of the abuse, Lopez was 31.

It started in July 1998 after Lopez invited the girl to watch a basketball game with him at home. It wasn't an unusual practice for him, as he would frequently invite the players he coached to his home to watch a movie with snacks. However, the girl was alone at that time, and Lopez began inappropriately touching her.

From that point on, Lopez intimidated and controlled the girl, the criminal complaint alleges. The teenage girl's parents had alcohol problems and didn't closely monitor their daughter. They didn't go to school meetings, they also didn't follow her sports games or her grades - a fact that was known to Lopez, court documents show.

Lopez would sexually harass the girl. In one case, he forbade her to wear underwear under her pants. In another case, he began touching her genitals while sitting next to her on a team bus while traveling to a tournament. The sexual abuse featured multiple acts of sexual penetration, including anal and fellatio, court documents say.

Lopez also had abusive coaching methods, which went unreported due to his status as a well-known youth coach, Valdes writes. Namely, Lopez has won five youth European gold medals and two World Cup silvers.

"They knew it, and they have been covering it up and covering it up until they have no choice," Valdes reports, citing her source close to the situation.

The girl left Gernika in 2003 after going to study at a university. With the transfer, she abandoned the game of basketball. Lopez, meanwhile, stayed coaching at Gernika until 2022.

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