{"id":14380,"date":"2023-07-20T09:58:41","date_gmt":"2023-07-20T09:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/?p=14380"},"modified":"2023-07-20T09:58:41","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T09:58:41","slug":"benjamin-mendy-signs-for-lorient-after-sex-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/?p=14380","title":{"rendered":"Benjamin Mendy Signs For Lorient After Sex Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/punchng.com\/author\/agencyreport\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Agency Report <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Benjamin Mendy signed for French club Lorient on Wednesday after the former Manchester City and France defender was acquitted in a sex offences trial in England last week.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cLorient are happy to announce today the signing on a two-year deal of the French international left-back Benjamin Mendy,\u201d the Ligue 1 club said in a statement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Mendy, 29, was cleared of sex offences last week, ending a three-year court process.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The player, who would have faced a lengthy jail term if convicted, had previously been cleared in January of six counts of rape and one of sexual assault following a six-month trial.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But jurors in that trial had been unable to reach a verdict on two other counts, triggering the retrial that ended last week.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Mendy, whose contract with English and European champions Manchester City expired at the end of June, had denied all the charges against him.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Lorient, 10th behind champions Paris Saint-Germain in Ligue 1 last season, said Mendy would start training from Wednesday after taking a medical.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">His arrival at the club comes almost two years after his last match for Manchester City.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Last Friday, at Chester Crown Court in northwest England, the 2018 World Cup winner broke down after the not-guilty verdicts on one count of rape and one of sexual assault were delivered.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Mendy, a record signing for a defender when he moved to Manchester City from French club Monaco in 2017, played 75 times for City.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">But his playing time was limited by injuries and a loss of form.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The last of his 10 caps for France came in November 2019, after the defender won the World Cup with the national side in 2018 in Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The trials meant that he missed Manchester City\u2019s treble last season of the English Premier League, FA Cup and Champions\u00a0League.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">AFP<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Benjamin Mendy signed for French club Lorient on Wednesday after the former Manchester City and France defender was acquitted in a sex offences trial in England last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7284,7285,7286],"class_list":["post-14380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-benjamin-mendy","tag-lorient","tag-sex-trial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14380"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14380"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14382,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14380\/revisions\/14382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}