Sex-tape and blackmail scandal that has ripped French football apart
Real Madrid star Benzema found guilty in bizarre plot against his ex team-mate
THE verdict lasted barely half an hour, a little longer than the conversation that turned this seedy case of sex tapes and blackmail into a six-year scandal that rocked French football.
Shortly after 10am yesterday, judge Christophe Morgan rose from his seat and slipped out of Courtroom C in Versailles. His work was done.
Neither Karim Benzema nor Mathieu Valbuena were in the room. Neither can yet shake off a case that has bound them since 2015. Last night, Benzema was 1,500 miles away for Real Madrid’s Champions League clash with Sheriff and scored in a 3-0 win. He was a few hours into a 12month suspended jail sentence for his role in the attempted blackmail of a former France team-mate.
The judge handed down a €75,000 fine and ordered Benzema to pay €80,000 towards Valbuena’s legal fees.
The guilty verdict only marks the start of another chapter in this sordid tale.
TV crews had gathered outside an hour before the courtroom rose to hear all five defendants condemned. When Benzema’s legal team, Sylvain Cormier and Antoine Vey, re-emerged, they lamented the verdict and announced Benzema would appeal.
‘It is a harsh, unfair sentence, we are stunned by this judgment,’ Cormier said. ‘Karim Benzema will be exonerated because he has nothing to be ashamed of.’
In late 2015, Benzema led the line for both Madrid and France. Valbuena, then at Lyon, was a regular under Didier Deschamps, too.
With Euro 2016 — a home tournament — on the horizon, the pair were regulars at Clairefontaine, the national football centre. Under the surface, trouble was brewing.
A sex tape had been found on Valbuena’s phone and an anonymous caller threatened to release the footage if he didn’t pay. Through a childhood friend, Benzema became a go-between. On October 6, the striker told Valbuena he knew someone who could help him out of the sticky situation.
‘Be careful, Math, these are very, very heavy criminals,’ Benzema warned in a conversation that reportedly lasted around 25 minutes.
Benzema’s lawyers insisted he was looking out for a team-mate. Prosecutors argued he was part of a plot dating back to July 2014, when Axel Angot, a fixer for players at Marseille, stumbled across the tape while transferring data from Valbuena’s phone. Angot showed the footage to his associate, Mustapha Zouaoui, a petty criminal who sourced luxury items for footballers and was identified as ‘the brain’ behind the plan.
Angot admitted they saw the sex tape as a way to settle a €25,000 debt they owed another former footballer. The judge ruled they were hoping to gain up to €150,000. Zouaoui turned to Karim Zenati, a convicted armed robber and lifelong friend of Benzema. The judge said that rather than money, it was loyalty to Zenati that lured Benzema into this case.
Soon, the suspects were being monitored. Undercover police pretended to be friends of Valbuena.
A month after speaking with Valbuena, Benzema was in custody accused of complicity in attempted blackmail. It took nearly six years for the case to come to court. For most of that time, Benzema was in international exile. He missed Euro 2016 and France’s 2018 World Cup triumph. Only this year was he recalled by Deschamps. What now?
French football chief Noel Le Graet insists he remains available for selection. For Valbuena, this shred of vindication comes too late. He hasn’t played for France since five days after speaking to Benzema. Now 37, the Olympiakos midfielder can never make up lost time.
Valbuena turned up to the first two days of last month’s trial, where he was mocked and details of his private life broadcast to the court.
His mother and sister had to listen as Zouaoui branded Valbuena’s home a ‘shagodrome’, where men openly slept with a revolving horde of women.
His international prospects lay in tatters and his club career in France crumbled as the scandal weighed heavily on him. He left his homeland in 2017 in search of ‘somewhere I’d be judged only on my football’. He missed yesterday’s verdict to prepare for tonight’s Europa League clash with Fenerbahce. None of the
An anonymous caller said he’d release footage if he wasn’t paid
accused turned up, either. Benzema faced a maximum sentence of five years, the prosecution wanted ten months suspended. The judge felt he deserved more.
The judge said Benzema ‘falsely presented himself as a friend wishing to help his team-mate’ and had instead, ‘using his professional stature’, tried ‘to convince Valbuena to submit to blackmail’.
A recorded phone call between Benzema and Zenati following the fateful conversation, played in court, led the judge to claim there was ‘a certain excitement’ to the footballer’s involvement.
Benzema will try to prove otherwise during appeal. As for Valbuena? ‘He overcame this ordeal with courage, discretion, and honesty,’ said his lawyer Didier Domat. ‘This will not be able to erase the damage done by his exclusion from the France team.’