Karim Benzema has been found guilty of attempting to blackmail fellow French teammate with a sex tape.
A judge handed Benzema a one-year suspended jail term and ordered him to pay a €75,000 fine.
BREAKING: French court convicts Real Madrid soccer star Karim Benzema of complicity in attempted blackmail pic.twitter.com/LPfIXOxIxW
— Reuters (@Reuters) November 24, 2021
Benzema was one of five people put on trial last month over the Mathieu Valbuena case.
The case dates back to June 2015, when the two footballers were at training camp with the French national team. The scandal made waves in France and both players ended up losing their national team spots.
At the camp, Benzema put pressure on Valbuena to pay off the blackmailers, whom he had conspired with to act as an intermediary, prosecutors said.
To date, Benzema has always denied the allegations and repeated that he was only trying to help Valbuena get rid of the tape.
