FORMER Manchester City star Benjamin Mendy claims team-mates enjoyed his boozy sex parties.
He told a tribunal: “We all had casual relations with women.”
In documents he identified Riyad Mahrez, Jack Grealish, Kyle Walker, John Stones and Raheem Sterling.
Mendy, 30, is suing for £11million in wages stopped when he was held for rape. He was later cleared.
In a statement read to an employment tribunal, Mendy said: “Several Manchester City first-team players, including the club captain, were all present at parties that I attended and hosted.
“We all drank alcohol. We all had casual relations with women. We all breached Covid-19 restrictions.
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“This does not excuse my behaviour, but I feel that it is unfair for Manchester City to single me out in the way that they have.
“The difference between me and the other players is that I was the one that was falsely accused of rape and publicly humiliated.”
Mendy, now at French club Lorient, did not directly name players.
However, he made reference to a story about his first trial published in online sports mag The Athletic.
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It mentioned that the jury was given the names of Riyad Mahrez, Jack Grealish, Kyle Walker, John Stones and Raheem Sterling and told they had all been at parties on the nights of alleged incidents.
None was accused of wrongdoing.
But Mendy wrote in documents submitted to the tribunal: “I can confirm this is true.
“All those players attended the parties which led to the charges.”
The Premier League champions stopped paying Mendy’s £500,000-a-month salary after he was charged with rape and sex assault in August 2021 and remanded in custody.
We all drank alcohol. We all had casual relations with women. We all breached Covid-19 restrictions
Benjamin Mendy
A number of women accused him of raping them at his £4.6million mansion in Prestbury, Cheshire.
In evidence raised by Mendy’s KC, Nick De Marco, the tribunal heard that five City team-mates were at parties hosted by Mendy.
The defender, who says the club breached his contract, yesterday gave evidence via video-link to the Manchester tribunal.
The French World Cup winner agreed a £6million-a-year deal until 2023 when he signed from Monaco for £52million in 2017.
The club continued paying Mendy, who gave his address as Madrid, following his first arrest in 2020.
After being charged, he was suspended by City and the Football Association. Mendy spent four months in custody before being bailed in January 2022.
On September 2021, City officials wrote to Mendy telling him they were stopping his wages.
The letter said: “The club has, after careful and anxious consideration, suspended the payment of salary.
“Nor will you receive any further payment until you are ready and able to perform your obligations under the contract of employment.
“You are not presently ready and able to perform duties because you have been remanded in custody and, separately, because the FA has suspended you from engaging in any football-related activity.
“In those circumstances, the club is no longer obliged to continue to pay you.”
In addition to wages, Mendy’s contract guaranteed him a £1million bonus each time City qualified for the Champions League, a further £900,000 if he played in more than 60 per cent of City’s matches and £1.2million annually to his image rights company.
Mendy was cleared of seven rapes and two sexual assaults after two trials at Chester crown court in January and June 2023.
He has brought a claim for unauthorised deductions from wages, saying under the terms of his contract, the club had the right to stop his pay only for six weeks.
He also revealed he was lent money by teammates Bernardo Silva, Sterling and Mahrez as cash dried up after his arrest.
Yesterday City’s lawyer, Sean Jones, KC, questioned Mendy about his lifestyle which saw him host illegal lockdown parties.
Man City deny breaching employment law and say Mendy violated his contract by bringing the club into disrepute and indulging in behaviour which prevented him from playing or training.
In his statement, Mendy claimed City’s then chief football operations officer Omar Berrada had told his agent that the club would pay back his salary once “I had been found not guilty”, but that Mr Berrada “would not commit this to writing”.
He added that in November 2022, he messaged Mr Berrada asking for confirmation he would receive “all my missing salaries”, without reply.
In a statement, Mr Berrada said he did not respond as he did not want to “give any assurances, suggestions, or indications at all, to suggest” that Mendy would be paid.
Instead he directed conversations to City’s legal department.
In August 2023, a month after he was cleared, Mendy messaged City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak but was ignored.
In his statement, Mendy said: “It is my understanding that Manchester City are claiming the reason they did not have to pay me was because the thing that prevented me from playing, training and attending meetings was a result of my own actions.
“I firmly disagree. I was falsely arrested for crimes I did not commit.
“In other words, if I had not been falsely arrested, I would have been able to play for Manchester City and I would have been paid in full.
“That is the reality of the situation. At no point have Manchester City apologised to me or even acknowledged how their actions almost cost me everything.
“I believe that it is fair and just for me to be paid the wages that I would have earned but for being falsely arrested for crimes that I did not commit.”
During his time at City, the tribunal heard, he missed 123 of 240 games.
Among documents submitted was a letter to the FA in April 2022 which lays bare his financial situation while awaiting trial.
It said he had just £197.78 in his Coutts bank account, outstanding legal fees of £96,000 and owed £10,000 to a cleaning firm.
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He could not pay his £80,000-a-month mortgage and had to rely on loans from friends.
Mendy was also being chased for £843,000 in tax, owed a concierge firm in France 400,000 euros and was struggling to meet child maintenance bills. The tribunal continues.
Players identified in documents
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
