Real Madrid have released a statement insisting that club president Florentino Perez “fully supports” Karim Benzema after the striker was charged in connection to a sex-tape blackmail plot involving Mathieu Valbuena.
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Benzema was charged with conspiracy to blackmail and participating in a criminal group as part of the investigation and faces up to five years in prison.
Under France’s justice system, the move from the prosecutor does not confirm any wrongdoing but does indicate investigators have “serious grounds for pursuing the matter with him”, the Telegraph reported.
Mathieu Valbuena and Karim Benzema are not in the France squad for friendlies against Germany and England this month.
Suspects Benzema (27) was summoned to the police station at Versailles shortly before 9am on Wednesday morning and spent the night in custody.
He was also banned from meeting the 31-year-old Valbuena, a midfielder playing for Ligue 1’s Lyon. He has been freed pending further investigation, but has been placed under judicial supervision, barring him from contacting Valbuena or anyone else involved in the case.
Against the French national soccer player Karim Benzema an investigation has been initiated.
Suspected blackmailers got ahold of a sex tape featuring Valbuena, and reportedly approached a childhood friend of Benzema in an effort to extort money from his teammate.
Benzema’s attorney Sylvain Cormier says the 27-year-old has “taken no part in this blackmail attempt”, and that the case has gone public “in a fallacious manner”.
According to French press reports, Benzema came to the attention of French investigators in October after he mentioned the tape to Valbuena when the pair trained in France ahead of worldwide matches against Armenia and Denmark. Previous year he and fellow French global player Franck Ribery were cleared of accusations for soliciting underage prostitutes.
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Benzema resumed light training with Real Madrid later Thursday, with the Spanish giants publishing a picture of the striker doing a few ball work on its Twitter feed.
