FILE–Netherlands’ Steven Van de Velde (L) during the volleyball Beach Pro Tour Elite 16 final match in Brasilia, Brazil, on May 5, 2024. (Photo by EVARISTO SA / AFP)

A Dutch volleyball player convicted in 2016 of raping an underaged girl has controversially been selected to represent the Netherlands in the Olympic beach volleyball competition in Paris.

Steven van de Velde, now 29, was sentenced to four years in prison after admitting three counts of rape against a 12-year-old girl, according to British newspaper The Telegraph.

He served part of his sentence in Britain and was then transferred to the Netherlands, where he was eventually released and took up volleyball again in 2017.

“We know Steven’s history,” said Michel Everaert, general director of the Dutch volleyball federation (Nevobo), in a statement.

“He was convicted at the time according to English law and he has served his sentence,” added Everaert.

Nevobo and the Dutch Olympic Committee have consulted experts who have judged there is “zero chance” of Van de Velde reoffending.

The Telegraph cited British judge Francis Sheridan as saying when he sentenced the player: “Your hopes of representing your country now lie as a shattered dream.”

But Everaert said Van de Velde had been “fully reintegrated into the Dutch volleyball community.”

“He is proving to be an exemplary professional and human being and there has been no reason to doubt him since his return.”

The association also cited the player himself as admitting he had made “the biggest mistake of my then young life”.

“I cannot reverse it, so I will have to bear the consequences,” he was cited as saying.

His selection seems to have been more of a story outside the Netherlands than in the country’s own media.

The AD daily said there had been a “fuss in the foreign media” over Van de Velde.

“I understand that in the run-up to the biggest sporting event in the world, this can attract the attention of international media,” said the player quoted by his association.