FOCUS – If the player has not yet been accused by Swedish justice, the Madrid club has, on numerous occasions, had to deal with scandals of a sexual nature which targeted different of its players.
A new sex scandal to deal with for Real Madrid? If for the moment, Kylian Mbappé has not yet been cited by the Stockholm prosecutor’s office, the captain of the France team finds himself at the heart of a media whirlwind. Several Swedish media claim that the Real Madrid striker is the target of an investigation for “rape and sexual assault”but would for the moment only “reasonably suspected” . The alleged incident took place on Thursday October 10 in a hotel in the capital, where Mbappé stayed between Wednesday and Friday. The young woman went to the hospital on Friday, before filing a complaint on Saturday.
If the affair is gaining momentum in France, Real Madrid showed little concern and claimed to believe in the version of its player who denies the facts. The Madrid club “think there is nothing at the moment”according to information from our colleagues at The Team . The Merengue institution knows how to keep a low profile while awaiting the outcome of a legal case. She has in fact already adopted this strategy in the context of previous sexual scandals with which she had to face. Le Figaro takes stock.
Benzema in the sex tape affair
In November 2015, during the Valbuena sex tape affair, the French Real striker, Karim Benzema, was indicted by French justice for “complicity in attempted blackmail and participation in a criminal association”. The player was accused of having put pressure on his teammate from the France team, Mathieu Valbuena, present in the video. From the start of the scandal, Real Madrid supported Benzema – who denied his involvement -, said they respected the presumption of innocence and let justice do its work, recalls The Team.
“I feel that the club has confidence in me, that my teammates do too. I play for the people I love.(…) Real is a team that doesn’t give up on you! They are all behind me. Starting with the president (Florentino Pérez)”Benzema appreciated. The striker was also supported by his coach at the time, Zinedine Zidane. “Zizou, I didn’t wait for this statement to know that he supported me. (…) He’s a big brother to me.”he rejoiced.
Karim Benzema was finally sentenced in June 2022 to a one-year suspended prison sentence and had to pay a fine of 75,000 euros as well as 80,000 euros to Mathieu Valbuena for moral damage.
Ronaldo accused of rape
A few years earlier, another scandal shook the Merengue club with another, no less well-known player: Cristiano Ronaldo. The latter was prosecuted by the American courts for a rape committed in 2009 during a party in Las Vegas. The complainant, Kathryn Mayorga, a former model, filed a complaint immediately, without mentioning Ronaldo’s name. It was only in September 2018 that she accused CR7. At that time, the player was at the end of his contract with Real and was preparing to join Juventus Turin.
Unlike the case of Benzema, Real Madrid had been directly involved in this affair after the Portuguese daily morning mail revealed that the Madrid club would have pushed its player to pay 325,000 euros to the top model so that she would remain silent and spare the image of Real. The next day, the club denied the accusations, ensuring that it had not “knowledge of no fact” and announced that he was filing a complaint against the newspaper.
During all these years, Ronaldo has continued to proclaim his innocence. In June 2022, the case was finally dismissed by a Nevada court.
David Beckham’s adultery
In another register, far from legal proceedings, David Beckham also marked the image of Real Madrid. Upon his arrival at the club, after eleven years at Manchester United, the English player quickly became known to the Spanish public, not for his sporting prowess, but for his sex life. Indeed, he made the headlines in the European press for having cheated on his wife, Victoria Beckham, with his personal assistant. The facts allegedly occurred when he moved alone to Madrid, before his wife and children joined him.
If Beckham was quick to deny it, another woman, in turn, claimed to have had an affair with the player. THE Mirror UK reported that they exchanged sexts for two years and had sex in a hotel in Singapore while Beckham was visiting Real Madrid. These two events close together in time disrupted the athlete’s arrival at Real, a club unaccustomed at the time to such a level of media coverage of its players.
The couple returned to the facts in a documentary series «Beckham»available on Netflix. “It was the first time Victoria and I had been under this kind of pressure in our marriage. At the end of the day, it’s our privacy.”he added.
Dissemination of child pornography images
Much more recently, four young players, unknown to the general public, from the Real Madrid reserve teams were charged with broadcasting a video of a sexual nature involving a minor, in September 2023. The Spanish Civil Guard announced that it had arrested three of them. these players, following the filing of a complaint by the mother of the 16-year-old victim, for their involvement in the “broadcast of a video with sexual content with a minor”. Aged 21 to 22, they were arrested at the Madrid club’s training center.
All are accused of having participated in an orgy with a minor and another young woman, which they filmed without their consent. They then broadcast “massively” the video, details the Spanish newspaper The Confidential . The events took place in the Canary Islands three months earlier.
The four defendants are currently under investigation for revealing secrets and child pornography and face a prison sentence of up to five years in prison.
