“All generations combined, we have all been confronted with problems of entourage”, said Jérôme Alonzo to FranceInfo a few days ago. For the Radio France consultant, the evil is therefore not new and the “Pogba affair” which is currently agitating French football is only a logical continuation of the escalation. The former goalkeeper thus remembers“entourages taking advantage of the success of relatives to enrich themselves or, at least, try to do so”. Among the victims of this blackmail, well-known internationals have suffered from these practices. Franceinfo: sport returns to these precedents.
Valbuena and the sextape affair
It is, before the outcome of the Pogba imbroglio, the affair that has caused the most ink to flow. Because it pitted two internationals against each other, Mathieu Valbuena accusing Karim Benzema of blackmailing him to avoid the broadcast of an intimate video. In the end, this case will last more than six years and will end in court, the Real Madrid striker being sentenced to one year in prison suspended and 75,000 euros fine for complicity in blackmail.
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Before being on the dock, Karim Benzema had been in the ranks of the victims, a few years earlier, when the father-in-law of an ex-girlfriend had threatened to disclose photos of this idyll. The scammer had been arrested during a false ransom delivery organized by the police, and posted on the spot to see the flagrante delicto.
Trezeguet victim of a paparazzi
The former tricolor international had to face him, the malicious practices of the one who was nicknamed “the king of the paparazzi”. Fabrizio Corona, who boasted of having a collection of 10,000 photos of celebrities, had surprised the striker of Juventus Turin, in 2006, leaving a nightclub in the company of a young woman who was not his wife . David Trezeguet had first given in to blackmail, thus paying 25,000 euros to the ill-intentioned photographer, before retracting and bringing a civil action. Italian justice will vindicate him by granting him the reimbursement of this sum. Since then, Fabrizio Corona has been sentenced to 13 years and two months in prison for his numerous extortion attempts, in particular at the expense of other footballers such as the Italian Francesco Coco or the Brazilian Adriano.
Lizarazu in the eye of ETA
Originally from the Basque Country, Bixente Lizarazu found himself under the thinly veiled threat of the terrorist organization Euskadi ta Askatasuna, better known by the abbreviation ETA. The latter accused the defender of having “defended the colors of an enemy state”in this case France, and demanded, via a missive addressed to the player’s parents, financial aid “to lead the fight”. This letter was accompanied by chilling threats: “Failure to respond to our request would result in a response against you or your property.” But, in statements to the Spanish sports daily aceand during a trip from Bayern Munich to Marbella, Lizarazu had specified that he refused to pay because “we all know what this money is for”.
In fact, “Liza” will never be worried. However, the latter confided later in his autobiography: “In Germany, I went to Bayern training in an armored sedan with weapons at hand”.
Adebayor also threatened by his older brother
Before Paul Pogba, Emmanuel Adebayor had also had to undergo the law of siblings. The Togolese, passed by Arsenal in particular, tells in a documentary entitled “My Dark Side”, broadcast on Canal +, that he had been forced, at the age of 16 and when he started in Metz, to empty his account and give it to his older brother. Later, while playing for Monaco, Adebayor remembers“being woken up with a knife to your throat.”
In this case, it was not just an expression, but a very real fact… In 2005, when he admitted to having considered suicide, the Togolese brought his family together to try to settle these differences. He then summarizes this meeting on his Facebook page: “When I asked for their opinion, they wanted me to offer them each a house and pay them a monthly salary.”
: “They put a knife to my throat!” @E_Adebayor confides in his astounding relationship with his family in @dacourtolivier and @Marc_Sauvourel in #MyShadowPart on @canalplus pic.twitter.com/TIBEGLVkL7
– Canal Football Club (@CanalFootClub) January 7, 2018
Later, the Togolese confided in the magazine SoFoot : “I always told my little brothers that we were being manipulated by our families”, he reports. “Often I change my number so that my family doesn’t contact me. They don’t call to check on me, but to ask for money. This was the case after I broke my hamstrings at Tottenham : they called me during my scan asking me if I could pay for the child’s school. Ask me about my health, first!”