MANCHESTER City footballer Benjamin Mendy has a secret love child from a Mediterranean holiday romance.This week it emerged that the Premier League ace is paying the mother Yolanda Aguera around £350 a month towards the upkeep of their daughter – after she demanded a four-figure sum.
Benjamin Mendy has a secret love child, 3, from a holiday romance with Yolanda AgueraCredit: Darren Fletcher
Mendy, 28, was ordered to pay Yolanda, 41, around £350 a month towards the upkeep of their daughterCredit: Andy Kelvin / Kelvinmedia
Mendy’s £90,000 a week contract at Manchester City is said to expire in JuneCredit: Getty
The child, now aged three, was conceived after he met former bank worker Yolanda, 41, at a trendy hotel in Barcelona and went with her to a party at a mutual friend’s plush apartment in the city.
Mendy, 28, did not dispute paternity.
His £90,000 a week contract at Manchester City is said to expire in June and raises questions as to whether he will be able to pay the mortgage on his £4.8 milllion home in Cheshire.
He’s also been suspended without pay since September 2021 when he was charged with sex offences.
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Speaking exclusively to The Sun on Sunday, Yolanda, who lives in a small one-bedroom apartment in the city suburb of Badalona, said: “The last three years of single parenting have been hard.
“Initially I was getting up two hours every night to breastfeed and helping to look after my grandmother during the day before she went into a retirement home.
“Since my daughter started at nursery school this year I’ve had a bit more freedom to look for work but I’m having to focus on jobs that will enable me to fit in with her timetables.
“The money Ben is paying will help but I’m worried about how I’m going to make ends meet and ensure our daughter doesn’t want for anything.
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“I was getting just over £400 a month in state benefits up until they ran out a week or so ago.
“My mortgage is £550 a month so at the moment I’m relying on the little savings I have and help from my parents.”
Yolanda added: “I would like Ben to be there for our daughter as she grows up.
“He hasn’t got any kind of meaningful relationship with her just now and has only seen her once when we flew to Manchester and visited him at his home in Cheshire.
“She loves playing football and is left-footed like her dad and if I have the money I’d like her to start extra-curricular activities in sport and music which she also seems to have a passion for when she begins proper school next year.”
Speaking about their holiday romance, Yolanda revealed they first met at the trendy W Hotel in Barcelona in July 2019.
Yolanda says she told Mendy she was pregnant but did not name him as the dad on the birth certificateCredit: Darren Fletcher
Yolanda added: ‘He hasn’t got any kind of meaningful relationship with her (his daughter) just now’Credit: Darren Fletcher
She said: “I had gone along for a drink with a female friend and we got talking to him and his pals.
“The attraction was instant and mutual.
“There was music on the terrace and after we danced he sat me on his lap and we kissed.
“My friend told me he was a footballer because I had no idea who he was when we first met.
“We all ended up in a nearby apartment they seemed to be renting where one of Benjamin’s pals had offered to cook dinner.
“Before we sat down for the meal Benjamin took me by the hand and guided me towards a bedroom where we had sex.”
She realised she was pregnant five weeks later and became a mum following an emergency Caesarean on April 22, 2020.
Yolanda told Mendy about her pregnancy but did not name him as the father on the birth certificate although he has not disputed paternity.
Since then they’ve been trying to reach an agreement for care of their daughter.
Mendy went on trial last year at Chester Crown Court charged with seven counts of rape against four women, one attempted rape of a fifth alleged victim and a sexual assault of a sixth woman.
He was found not guilty of six counts of rape and the sexual assault but will face a retrial in June after the jury did not reach a verdict on one rape count and the attempted rape which he denies.
Mendy has agreed visiting rights to his daughter.
Yolanda, a Spanish citizen, said: “She’s adorable and always happy and she’s the spitting image of her dad.
“My mum was the first person who held her in her arms in the hospital and told me how similar they were the moment she saw her.
“I wouldn’t change her for the world. I had sleepless nights when I was pregnant wondering if I was doing the right thing by having her but the moment I had her in my arms she changed my life.
“She’s the most incredible person I have in my life and my reason for living.
“I wouldn’t turn the clocks back even if I could.
“God has rewarded me with this daughter. Being a mother right now means everything to me.”
The W Hotel in Barcelona where the pair metCredit: Alamy More
