Viktor Doria is one of the most prominent managers in Jiu-Jitsu and he recently spoke on the topic of abuse in the sport, revealing that ‘there are more people’ than those that are already known. It’s sadly a topic that has come up quite a lot recently, with several notable cases involving both world champions and top coaches. Doria went on an episode of the Connect Cast recently and the conversation eventually turned to former IBJJF world champion Erberth Santos being sentenced to 14 years in prison. A sentence he was given as the result of his involvement in a string of rapes and robberies in Brazil.
He was pretty clear about his thoughts on Santos, summarising them as “He’s there now, 14 years. The place he deserves to be.” The bigger news came when they eventually began discussing another prominent case recently, the allegations of abuse levied against top kid’s coach Alcenor Alves. Doria started out by hinting that these allegations wouldn’t be the last:
“There are still more things happening, unfortunately… There’s still a house that’s going to fall.”
One of the key elements of the case against Alves that has shocked so many people is the fact that his academy was focused around supposedly helping the poorest students in the sport. Doria was keen to reassure people that the concept of social projects themselves are not to blame, but he did caution that he believed there were more ‘bad apples’ who have not yet been exposed:
“How many stars are there from Jiu-Jitsu social projects? Look at Cicero Costha, how many stars did he train? Marcio de Deus… How many stars has he trained? There are a lot of people doing a lot of good things, but they are apples… Unfortunately, there are also bad apples in this. And it’s not just this guy who was caught. There are more people. There are more things happening, unfortunately.”
Viktor Doria isn’t the first person to make allegations of abuse in the Jiu-Jitsu world against unnamed people. Craig Jones also hinted at an unnamed predator in the sport just last year, although it’s possible that he was actually referring to Alves at the time. Doria finished off by stating that he couldn’t point out specific people without having absolute proof of what he was talking about:
“At this level, at a level, perhaps, without being a child, more than one level of harassment. I don’t want to speculate, because these are very serious accusations. If I had proof, I would put it here on the table, but I don’t. But there are people out there who must be biting their nails after seeing this news that came out now. There’s still room for destruction there.”
The full interview with Viktor Doria where he warns about further abuse in the Jiu-Jitsu world was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of the Connect Cast podcast:
