Manchester United defender Harry Maguire was handed a 15-month suspended sentence by Greece’s Supreme Court on Wednesday for a nightclub brawl involving police officers on the Greek island of Mykonos in August 2020, court officials said.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers asked Maguire’s club and the English Football Association to sanction the player.
The Press Association reported that Maguire intends to challenge the sentence.
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The decision to appeal to a higher court will have the effect of overturning this new ruling, as happened when Maguire appealed the first ruling in 2020.
The England international was originally given a 21-month suspended sentence shortly after the incident, but appealed the ruling, triggering a retrial in a court on the island of Syros, the region’s administrative capital.
The appeal trial had been delayed several times, including once due to a lawyers’ strike.
Maguire, who will turn 33 on Thursday, was found guilty of causing minor bodily harm, insulting police officers, attempted bribery and unlawful violence against police officers.
The sentence was suspended for three years.
PA reported that Maguire and his legal representatives had rejected multiple efforts to resolve the case out of court with a financial offer, including one made during the recess of Wednesday’s hearing, because he is committed to proving his innocence.
Maguire did not attend the hearing in Greece and was named in the starting line-up for Man United’s Premier League match against Newcastle on Wednesday night.
No travel restrictions were imposed on Maguire, PA reported, meaning that as things stand he would be eligible to be part of England’s World Cup squad this summer.
The centre-back, who was not present at Wednesday’s trial, denied any wrongdoing. In 2020, he said: “If anything, me, my family and my friends are the victims.”
But a lawyer representing police officers involved in the 2020 incident accused Maguire of showing arrogance and a lack of remorse.
“He has never apologized, not even once. Not a single apology,” lawyer Ioannis Paradissis told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “To this day he has a criminal record.
“We hope that his club and the Football Association of England take action against him,” he added. “How is it possible that someone who now has a criminal record and has been convicted of acts of violence against police officers continues to participate in national teams and the England team? It is unacceptable.”
Paradissis also issued a statement on behalf of the police officers, who expected an apology as “an elementary gesture of respect.”
“It is incompatible with the values of sport and the role model status that elite athletes are expected to embody, for a person with a criminal record for violence to continue to appear as a Premier League player and as a public figure admired by young fans around the world,” he added.
Maguire is yet to comment following Wednesday’s sentencing, but told the BBC in August 2020 that he was “scared for his life” and worried that he, along with his family and friends, were being kidnapped.
“We knelt down, put our hands up and they started hitting us,” Maguire told BBC Sport.
“They were hitting my leg saying my career was over: ‘No more football. You won’t play again.’
“And at that moment I thought there’s no chance they were police or I don’t know who they are, so I tried to run away, I was in great panic, fear, fearing for my life. The whole process.”
PA and The Associated Press contributed to this report.