The French international defender of Manchester City, Benjamin Mendy, 27, was charged with two new violations, announced the English justice.
Now Mendy faces six charges of rape and one of sexual assault.
Another man, Louis Saha Matturie, 40, unrelated to former footballer Louis Saha and whose relationship with Mendy has not been clarified, was charged with two additional rapes – for a total of six – as well as sexual assault. .
– A drag race –
The events involving Mendy occurred between October 2020 and August 2021, while Matturie’s accusations are from March to August 2021.
The two men were summoned to court in Stockport on Wednesday. The trial is due to begin on January 24.
Both are incarcerated and their requests to regain provisional release have been rejected on several occasions.
Mendy was placed in provisional detention at the end of August. The City, in which he has played since 2017, had suspended him minutes before the announcement made by the police.
Four women reported both men.
To sign Mendy, one of the great hopes of French football a few years ago, City paid 60 million euros ($ 68 million) to Monaco, making him the most expensive defender in history at the time.
His career has been marked by injuries, but he was part of the French team that won the 2018 World Cup in Russia (international 10 times). He has played just 75 games for City in the last four seasons.
Off the court his life has not been exemplary. The gamer already amused the tabloids when his Lamborghini Avenador SVJ, worth more than 500,000 euros ($ 587,000), was seized at the end of 2020. He was driving it without a license or insurance.
He was found guilty in that case and sentenced to just over 1,000 euros ($ 1,175) in fine.
– Precedents in football –
Mendy’s is added to other rape accusations made in recent years against footballers.
In May 2013, French Loïc Remy, then a player for Queens Park Rangers, was arrested for the gang rape of a woman.
The charges were later dropped a few months later. Charges for a similar act against Bafetimbi Gomis in France were also dropped.
The Brazilian Neymar obtained the file of a complaint in Brazil from a woman who accused him of having abused her in May 2019 in a Parisian hotel.
Cristiano Ronaldo accepted a deal after an accusation. He paid $ 375,000 (320,000 euros) to a former American model, Kathryn Mayorga, who accused him of raping him in 2009 in a Las Vegas hotel room.
For his part, Brazilian Robinho was sentenced to nine years in prison by a Milan court for the gang rape of a 23-year-old Albanian girl, when the footballer was a member of AC Milan.
Robinho, currently in Brazil, was never detained to serve his sentence. AFP (HN)