Benzema ‘admits involvement’ in extortion case

PARIS: French football’s hope that troubled star Karim Benzema had turned a corner and could finally deliver on his potential appeared in tatters on Thursday as he admitted involvement in an alleged extortion case.
Benzema was charged in an extortion case involving a sex tape featuring fellow French international Mathieu Valbuena, prosecutors said Thursday.
He has been charged with “complicity in an attempt to blackmail” and conspiring to commit a criminal act, the prosecutor’s office in Versailles, outside Paris, said.
The charges carry a prison sentence of at least five years.
Benzema was also banned from meeting Lyon midfielder Valbuena, a legal constraint that puts in question the two players’ future involvement in the French national team
The player has told investigators he approached Valbuena about the tape on behalf of “a childhood friend”.
Meanwhile, both Benzema and Valbuena were omitted from France’s squad for the games with England and Germany later this month.
Before last year’s World Cup, Benzema was lauded for his new-found maturity and responsibility and touted as a changed man who could be a leader and ambassador for his country’s football team.
His sordid and difficult past included the accusation that he had paid for sex with an underage prostitute, a charge on which he was acquitted.
But having seemingly put that affair behind him, Benzema has failed to leave his scandal-tainted history in the past.
Only last month he was caught driving without a valid licence in Madrid, while two years ago he was fined 18,000 euros ($19,600) and had his licence revoked for speeding.
But this latest incident could be the most damaging yet for Benzema’s reputation.
And whereas in the past he could be excused for youthful naivety, at 27 years of age, such a justification looks paper thin.
He will now find it harder than ever to escape from the shackles of doubt and suspicion that have always accompanied the talented forward.
Born in Lyon to an Algerian immigrant family, Benzema was a teenage star when he made his France debut in 2007 at just 19.