Facing seven rape charges, footballer Benjamin Mendy spoke out for the first time in his defense on Monday during his UK trial, denying non-consensual intercourse and saying women "come to him".
"The way women came to me, I had never had that before," he acknowledged, recalling his first experience as a professional at Marseille, when he was 18 years old. "The attention increased tenfold when I signed for Manchester City," she confessed.
"It's one of the best teams in Europe. The way they came to me is not because of my appearance, it's because of football. For me if they wanted to have sex and I wanted to, everything was fine", he explained in a narration that reflects the world in which the millionaire soccer player lived, who has recognized that in his life it was "normal" to have sexual relations with several women on the same night, or to do so without taking any precautions. "For me it was normal, I now realized that It sounds bad".
The 28-year-old French defender, sanctioned for more than a year by Manchester City, has been on trial since the beginning of August in Chester, in the north of England, where he is accused of seven rapes, an attempted rape and sexual assault. The events allegedly took place between October 2018 and August 2021 at his home in Prestbury, Cheshire. He faces life in prison.
The first months of this lengthy trial were devoted to the prosecution, which portrayed Benjamin Mendy as a "predator" who preyed on "vulnerable, terrified and isolated" victims.
Since Monday, now it's up to the defense to speak. Benjamin Mendy, in a navy blue suit and white shirt, spoke for the first time to defend himself, answering questions from his lawyer.
He said that because of his status as a footballer, women "come to (him)". If he said "I like to sleep with a lot of women", he denied non-consensual sex, believing that "if they (women) wanted to have sex and I wanted to have sex too, everything was fine". But if a woman had said "no", Benjamin Mendy claimed that she "would have accepted it and stopped".
Winner of the 2018 World Cup with the French national team, where he was a substitute, Benjamin Mendy spent more than four months, from August 2021 to January 2022, in preventive detention. Released in early January, he was placed under judicial supervision pending trial.
The footballer assures that the time he has spent in prison has changed him: "The way I slept with different women, the way I went out... I didn't know that I could hurt his feelings if we both agreed to have sex , but now I realize I was disrespectful."
He also explained that his time in prison has served to reflect on how he has been spending his money: "The life I had before, everything I wanted to have, I just bought it. Prison has taught me the value of money. It was first time in my life that I worked in something other than football, I earned like 6 euros every day, to spend it in the canteen to buy some food".
Trained in Le Havre, revealed in Marseille and spent a season at Monaco, Benjamin Mendy became the most expensive defender in history in 2017 when the Citizens paid 52 million pounds (about 61.4 million euros at current prices). to get their services.
He is tried along with another man, Louis Saha Matturie -no relation to former soccer player Louis Saha-, prosecuted for his part for six rapes and three sexual assaults. They both pleaded not guilty.
