The France coach Didier Deschamps has said it would be impossible for him to pick Karim Benzema for next year’s European Championship while the case involving the alleged blackmail of a national team-mate is hanging over him.
The Real Madrid striker is currently suspended from the national team after being placed under formal investigation over an alleged plot to blackmail the Lyon midfielder Mathieu Valbuena over a sex tape.
Noël Le Graët, the head of the French Football Federation, said last week: “Benzema is not able to be picked and he won’t be in June [at Euro 2016] if the situation does not change. It’s heartbreaking, I must say.
“We’re all embarrassed, we would have preferred to avoid such an affair. I’m unhappy about it firstly because he is good and because I’m convinced he was caught up in something completely crazy which went over his head.”
Deschamps agreed with Le Graët, in an interview picked up by L’Equipe when he was asked whether Benzema could make the team for Euro 16. “For now, this is not possible,” he said.
He had some sympathy for the striker, saying: “Benzema made a mistake, that’s obvious” and said he “did not assess the situation in which he found himself” but he was unstinting in his support for Valbuena who he described as “the victim in this case”. He added: “I do not have to defend him because he is accused of nothing” and described him as an important player for France.
He was more concerned about the effects of the case on the hosts, “especially six months from the Euros”, fearing distractions for the dressing room while insisting that the team “will be there fully together”.
Benzema, who has the support of the Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez, is being investigated over an alleged attempt by one of his friends to extort money from Valbuena over the sex tape. He told investigators he approached Valbuena about the tape on behalf of “a childhood friend” but claims he did not think he was doing anything wrong.
Valbuena has said he felt “deeply disappointed” that someone he considered a friend and team-mate might be involved in the alleged plot. The pair were omitted from France’s squad for the games with Germany and England last month.
Benzema’s lawyer has insisted he was not party to any blackmail attempt. “He played no part, I repeat no part, in any blackmail or attempted blackmail,” Sylvain Cormier said in November.
Benzema had asked the FFF to delay making a decision on his participation in the Euros. The player was formally put under investigation on 5 November for “complicity in a blackmail attempt” and being part of a “criminal group”.
He is under judicial control, meaning he is not allowed to have any contact with Valbuena.
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