At his press conference this afternoon, Lorient manager Régis Le Bris was inevitably asked about the club’s recent signing of Benjamin Mendy, days after the left-back was cleared of one charge of rape and another of attempted rape.
The former Manchester City defender had been previously been cleared of six charges of rape and one of sexual assault back in January, and has now been acquitted of all charges. He was suspended by Manchester City for the duration of the legal procedure, since his arrest in August of 2021, and his contract with the Premier League side expired at the end of last season.
As reported by L’Équipe, his new manager sought to dismiss any concerns regarding Mendy’s arrival, swiftly after his acquittal:
“The justice system’s verdict should be taken at face value. You can’t redo the trial. We can only echo the words of the Minister for Sports. It’s been sorted out. We can’t casually speak of a trial. Things are controlled and looked into. From the moment the verdict is given, we can’t revisit it. There’s no need to go back over the trial in the public space. Then, we had the conversation about measuring the way in which the player was apprehending all of this. And [his] daily behaviour is in line. A club has to ask itself the question, and that’s what we’ve done. It’s a subject that can’t be avoided. What I like about this story, is that there’s an element of [him being an] outsider, a rehabilitation, a conqueror after a difficult story. I think that what’s happening around Benjamin is symbolic in terms of what we want to be as a team and as a club.”
Le Bris also explained that the fact he has the same agent as Mendy had no influence on the signing, but that such links do “create the conditions for an encounter. It can be useful, but it’s quite rare”. He added that Mendy would require between six and eight weeks to lay the foundations to allow him to reach match fitness again, but that he was on the whole in good health and there were only slight muscular issues that needed addressing.
GFFN | Raphaël Jucobin
