PARIS, France (AFP) — A French court on Wednesday upheld a decision to send Paris Saint-Germain and Morocco footballer Achraf Hakimi to trial on a rape charge, a judicial source told AFP.

An appeals court confirmed on June 19, during the World Cup, that Hakimi, 27, would stand trial in criminal court over the alleged rape of a woman in 2023, an accusation he has repeatedly denied.

Hakimi had appealed that decision to the Court of Cassation, the highest court in the French judicial system for civil and criminal matters.

The appeal was Hakimi’s final legal recourse. In February, he was ordered to stand trial before the criminal court in the Hauts-de-Seine department on the rape charge.

Hakimi challenged that initial order and then appealed to the Court of Cassation after the Versailles appeals court upheld the decision in June.

Contacted on Wednesday, Hakimi’s lawyer, Fanny Colin, did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.

“After three and a half years of legal battles, after being slandered and dragged through the mud by Achraf Hakimi’s defence, my client is determined to obtain justice; she will fight to the very end,” the plaintiff’s lawyer, Rachel-Flore Pardo, said in a statement sent to AFP.

In February 2023, a woman then aged 24 told police in the Val-de-Marne region southeast of Paris that Hakimi had raped her.

The plaintiff said she met Hakimi in January 2023 on Instagram and went to his home in a taxi ordered by the player, a police source said at the time.

She claimed that the player kissed her, touched her without her consent and then raped her.

She said she managed to push him away and text a friend, who came to pick her up.

Hakimi was charged with rape a few days later.