The ex-player is interviewed on the ETB1 program ‘Abiapuntua’
Mikel Goñi reappears publicly this Tuesday. The ETB1 program ‘Abiapuntua’ interviews the former Oronoz Mugairi player in what will be his first public appearance after leaving prison. It will be from 10:30 p.m.
The 44-year-old Navarrese was sentenced to eight years and three months in prison for kidnapping, threatening and assaulting two people whom he accused of having stolen a marijuana plantation. Mikel Goñí entered prison in the summer of 2018. The Criminal Court number 3 of Pamplona considered Jesús María Maya, ‘Potro’, as his accomplice and sentenced him to the same penalties.
The events that led Mikel Goñi to prison occurred on November 30, 2014. That night, around half past eleven at night, the ex-manista, accompanied by Maya and an unidentified third person, went to a home belonging to Eugui and They accused a man of having stolen a marijuana plantation from a house that the Navarrese soccer player had rented in the council of Anocíbar, in the Odieta Valley.
According to the sentence, the defendants beat the man, tied him with a rope, put him in a vehicle and then transferred him on a journey that lasted thirty minutes to a vacant lot near the river in Elizondo. There, they held him while they talked on the phone.
The next day, the accused also threatened to kill another person. This time the victim was the owner of the house he had rented in Eugui, who was demanded to pay 10,000 euros for the theft of the marijuana. According to the ruling, Mikel Goñi, the other defendant and the person whose identity is unknown made serious threats to the man. “I’m going to kill you, son of a bitch, I shit on your dead, or you bring me the 10,000 euros tomorrow at 12.00, or you, your family and friends are in danger… Come on son of a bitch, you can bring the 10,000 euros now or tomorrow I send you to those from Irun, that those are going to cut off your leg, ”were some of the expressions that were addressed to him.
But there was not only intimidation towards this person. Justice maintains that to intimidate him and get the money, Mikel Goñi stuck a screwdriver under the nail of his right index finger and made a cut with the edge of a knife on the back of his left hand. This situation lasted from 10:00 p.m. on December 1 until 3:00 a.m. the next day, “during which time the defendants held him against his will inside the house.
On the morning of that same day, the threatened man gave the 10,000 euros to the defendant Jesús María Maya and the unidentified man, so that they could give it to Goñi. Of this sum, 4,000 euros belonged to the victim of the kidnapping and the rest to a brother of his who provided it for fear that the defendants would harm him.
From the fontons to the ‘Conquis’
The history of baseball recalls a moment at the Alsasua fronton that explains the entire biography of Mikel Goñi, his rise and fall. The pelota player from Oronoz was at the door when Julián Retegui passed him. The young man did not hold back and asked the legend: “What do I have to do to be like you?” And Retegui, the best pelotari of all time, did not cut a hair. “If they took your head off and put mine on you, you’d still get something big.”
Goñi’s career was not always marked by scandal. In his best moments he put an entire pediment on its feet with impossible plays in which he combined talent, magic, power and desire for victory. His first big fiasco was in Azkoitia, in the summer of 1999. He had gone out the night before, there were parties in his town. And the bull caught him. He arrived more than an hour late. Dressed as a pelota player and with heels on, but visibly affected by the excesses. In the warm-up he tore the ligaments in his right ankle. From there, his career took huge lurches. He was suspended by his company on several occasions and after moving away from the ball he approached the world of television. Thus, in 2007, he was one of the presenters of ‘The conqueror of the end of the world’.
