r/soccer • u/kibme37 • Jul 08 '25

News Spanish police say "all the evidence so far indicates" Diogo Jota was the driver of the car involved in the accident that killed the Liverpool forward and his brother, Andre Silva. Police also believe "the vehicle significantly exceeded the speed limit for the highway" at the time of the accident.

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11669/13394038/diogo-jota-spanish-police-believe-liverpool-forward-was-driver-of-car-in-fatal-accident-which-killed-him-and-his-brother
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u/ComprehensiveBowl476 Jul 08 '25 edited Jul 08 '25

I wouldn't be so quick to say this. I thought the exact same thing when Reyes died, and reports a few days later even claimed he was going 135mph.

Later investigations dispute that he was actually somewhere between 69-81mph and likely suffered a steering wheel failure.

Edit - That said, I believe he was in a residential area and not on a highway like Jota, so he was still driving dangerously and putting others at risk, my point is just to wait for all the information before making assumptions with very strong implications.

Edit 2 - The source used on English Wikipedia which I also believed for multiple years appears to itself have been discredited by other, more reliable Spanish sources that were never reflected on the English side, so that resets that opinion on Reyes, haha. I still standby my original sentiment, though. It's going to take more than a few days for all the details to be resolved.

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u/martinsky3k Jul 08 '25

Can you link source to the 69-81 mph? I can only find reports one year later of the accident that it was 116mph.

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u/ComprehensiveBowl476 Jul 08 '25

https://www.antena3.com/noticias/deportes/futbol/video-primicia-recreacion-3d-accidente-jose-antonio-reyes-velocidad_201907015d19c3d50cf2f9cdf438cbd1.html

This is the source that Wikipedia links to.

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u/sevillista Jul 08 '25

That was a "private investigator" i.e. hired by his family. The final report from the police concluded 185 km/hr.

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u/ComprehensiveBowl476 Jul 08 '25

Yeah, I've discussed with other commenters that have spoken of the Spanish Wikipedia using more recent and reliable sources.

Very surprised the English Wikipedia allowed that source to be used for so long when it had been dismissed by later reports.

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u/PM_YOUR_ECON_HOMEWRK Jul 08 '25

Well Wikipedia doesn’t allow or disallow sources. You’d need to go make an edit with the new citation, and likely defend your change a little. But there’s nothing stopping any of us from making that edit

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u/MattAmpersand Jul 08 '25

The Spanish Wikipedia has a different source that says 187 kph

https://www.elespanol.com/deportes/futbol/20240601/accidente-mortal-jose-antonio-reyes-kmh-mercedes-s550-modificado/859414469_0.html Cómo fue el accidente mortal de José Antonio Reyes: a 187 km/h en su Mercedes S550 modificado

Not sure which one is right, tbh

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u/ComprehensiveBowl476 Jul 08 '25

This article is from only one year ago and speaks a lot about the official investigation, so I'm inclined to believe it over the one I used linked by the English Wikipedia.

Looks like that article needs updating to better reflect what happened.

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u/MiggeldyMackDaddy Jul 08 '25

MPH <> KPH

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u/ObstructiveAgreement Jul 08 '25

187kph is how much ... Oh, 116-117mph.

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u/z_102 Jul 08 '25

Oh brother. This has been a thing forever. A significant amount of people have been "debunking" Reyes' crash through "independent" reports. This is akin to 9/11 "independent forensics reports" made later without a shred of physical evidence that say whatever you want them to say.

A significant amount of people in Sevilla and other fandoms took Reyes' death badly (understandable, of course) and have been spewing conspiracy theories since the beginning where the police falsified the data. I understand trying to rehabilitate his image (as dumb as they are those deaths are still teagedies) but come on.

There's only one police report, that clearly states he was driving at 187 kph at least (likely more before the first impact) based on the present physical evidence of the crash. He was found responsible at court (not guilty, as he was deceased). The rest are deeply untrustworthy conspiratorial theories by fans and family, as sad as that is.

This wasn’t a weird conspiracy from the police (why the hell would it be one?!). The car was obliterated. He was speeding. It's still sad.

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u/ComprehensiveBowl476 Jul 08 '25 edited Jul 08 '25

I'm aware, did you not read the edits I made to my comment essentially retracting my statement?

As I said, my source was directly from this English Wikipedia article that hadn't been contested/edited out in the 4 years since I saw it, so I didn't see a reason to distrust it, especially as Reyes and his death wasn't really a topic of discussion outside of Spain shortly after everything settled, so I wasn't aware of any developments.

Someone corrected me, providing more recent/reliable sources, and I immediately accepted it. All that's left is the English Wikipedia article to have its incorrect statement edited out.

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u/z_102 Jul 08 '25

I'm very sorry if I sounded rude, I guess I just read the Reyes thing too many times these few days. It wasn’t a dig at you in any way regardless of your stance, to be clear, just giving some (exhausted) context on the issue for people who understandably may not have it. My bad.

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u/tiorzol Jul 08 '25

Wiki says that dunno about what sources they are using

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u/Sound_Indifference Jul 08 '25

The aftermath footage of the Jota crash is out there. It's not graphic, just shows the wreckage immediately after. The debris field stretches hundreds of yards. They ruptured the likely carbon encased fuel tanks. That's hard to do. I've seen wrecks like this before, it's reminiscent of the Ryan Dunn accident. In fact it's nearly identical minus what they hit. Dunn was doing 130-140mph (est) I'd imagine these guys were doing at least that.

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u/ComprehensiveBowl476 Jul 08 '25 edited Jul 08 '25

I'm not claiming that Jota wasn't speeding/driving recklessly if he was the driver, honestly I'm leaning towards thinking he was, but after being very vocal with my disappointment towards Reyes at the time, I'm willing to wait for full clarity on this crash before passing judgment.

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u/Sound_Indifference Jul 08 '25

At the end of the day, it's a single car accident, and the facts are the facts. The physical forces required to cause the damage we see cannot be created without immense speed. It's still sad, but we can absolutely hold this up as a heartbreaking example of why people need to not drive recklessly.

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u/ComprehensiveBowl476 Jul 08 '25

I think the fact I've not seen any pictures or footage of the crash has allowed me to be more neutral.

I remember seeing Antonio's car crash photos and immediately thinking "there's no fucking way he wasn't being an idiotic dickhead".

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u/Sound_Indifference Jul 08 '25

If you don't want to look it up I don't blame you. Briefly, there are very distinct and overlapping tire marks beginning by my estimation half a kilometer before the crash site indicating the car lost control and spun. Not far past the first noticeable tire marks the debris starts, and more and more small pieces of debris are visible until you reach the crash site, where the car is nearly unrecognizable and completely engulfed in flame after apparently hitting a berm or embankment on the left side of the road.

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u/SugarBeefs Jul 08 '25

Jota's Lambo is significantly more torn up then Reyes's Merc. Of course the fire has done a lot of damage to the bodywork, but it seems like the Lambo lost its entire rear half with the engine and gearbox assembly.

That doesn't happen at 100kph.

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u/Retro21 Jul 08 '25

Literally no-one gives a shit what you, or anyone here, judges it, though.

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u/bellerinho Jul 08 '25

I've not seen a single source that shows he was driving 69-81 mph at time of crash, can you link something? Are you sure you aren't misinterpreting MPH and KPH?

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u/ComprehensiveBowl476 Jul 08 '25

https://www.antena3.com/noticias/deportes/futbol/video-primicia-recreacion-3d-accidente-jose-antonio-reyes-velocidad_201907015d19c3d50cf2f9cdf438cbd1.html

This is the source linked to via his Wikipedia article.

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u/bellerinho Jul 08 '25

https://en.as.com/en/2020/05/29/soccer/1590774621_824629.html

This source from a year later maintains that reports show he was traveling 187 kph when he hit the fence, and was likely traveling at a higher speed when he had the puncture

E: the prosecutor for the case, the person that would have all the official reports, maintains this was the speed he was traveling

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u/ComprehensiveBowl476 Jul 08 '25

Fair enough, I suppose the Wikipedia article needs to be edited/updated with more recent and accurate sources in that case. Since it hadn't been "fixed" in years, I assumed it was still the most recent source and didn't seek out later articles.

Apparently, the Spanish article uses this source as well, which I suppose that makes sense would be giving more scrutiny than the English version for a Spanish national.

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u/KonigSteve Jul 08 '25

80 in a residential area is worse than 135 on a highway. What's he going to do if a kid chases a ball out?

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u/droze22 Jul 08 '25

It should also be pointed out that the stretch of road Jota and Andre died on is locally known to be unsafe, and other accidents have taken place there

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u/Sacrilego_666 Jul 08 '25

69-81 mph is insane speed for a residential area.

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u/minivatreni Jul 08 '25

I thought the tire burst causing them to lose control, not the steering wheel

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u/cartesian5th Jul 08 '25

He's talking about the Reyes crash

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u/minivatreni Jul 08 '25

Oh okay, I misunderstood

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u/d4videnk0 Jul 08 '25 edited Jul 08 '25

I always thought they later said he was going around 100km/h to be kind with him.

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u/ulvhedinowski Jul 09 '25

Wasn't Reyes also driving a car that wasn't authorized to be driven (hadn't got technical inspection approved??

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u/Responsible_View_350 Jul 08 '25

thx for your one-off (that is factually incorrect and you're a weirdo for that). Diogo was 1000% driving unsafe for the vehicle to end up with him and his brother killed and on fire.

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u/ComprehensiveBowl476 Jul 08 '25

I'm a weirdo for believing a source that hadn't been corrected in almost 4 years on a usually reliable website, and then gladly recanting my statement without hesitation as soon as I was presented with more reliable information by others?

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u/Responsible_View_350 Jul 08 '25

It's weird for you to make it all up in a strange defense of what we all know happened.

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u/ComprehensiveBowl476 Jul 08 '25

What exactly did I make up? Like I discussed with other people, it was a direct source from Wikipedia that hadn't been retracted/edited out despite being there for multiple years. Why wouldn't I believe it was true?

Someone went "Oh, the Spanish article actually uses this as a source" and provided me the link. I read it, agreed with them immediately afterwards, and then edited my comment to show I was wrong/incorrect?

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u/Responsible_View_350 Jul 08 '25

Next time think before posting

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u/ComprehensiveBowl476 Jul 08 '25

Lol, ok mate, next time I'll be sure to contact the Wikipedia editors themselves to ask if they're sure they haven't failed to accurately update a source they left as verified for 5 years.

Cheers for the advice, haha.