Former star player of AS Monaco and former striker of the France team, Wissam Ben Yedder, now without a club and facing alcohol problems, must be tried on Tuesday afternoon in Nice, in the south of the France, for sexual assault, refusal to comply and driving while drunk.
The 34-year-old player, second top scorer in the history of the Monegasque club and 19 times selected for the French team from 2019 to 2022, is summoned at 1:30 p.m. before the criminal court, but several files are on the program and the time the actual start of his trial is not known.
On September 6, during one of the many alcoholic evenings that became his daily life, Ben Yedder met a young woman who agreed to get into his car. There, he placed his hand on her thigh, tried to kiss her and masturbated in front of her. Shocked, she immediately filed a complaint and Ben Yedder, still at the wheel of his car, was arrested with difficulty during the night in Cap-d’Ail, a town bordering Monaco.
NARRATIVE. From the French team to the prison gates: Wissam Ben Yedder, anatomy of a fall
His lawyers, Mes Hasna Louzé and Marie Roumiantseva assure him: he will be present at the hearing and he “intends to take responsibility for his actions”. “Mr. Ben Yedder is contrite for having caused such a situation and is sincerely sorry for the complainant”they added. Placed under strict judicial control, and against the advice of the prosecution, which had requested pre-trial detention, the Franco-Tunisian player risks up to 10 years in prison.
Other cases on the judges’ desk
And the legal drama is only just beginning for the player: on December 27 he will be tried for psychological violence against his wife, from whom he is in the process of divorcing. Another young woman accuses him of rape during another drunken evening during the summer of 2023, facts still under investigation. But in these two cases, he refutes the accusations.
In 2023, Ben Yedder was sentenced in Seville (Spain) to six months in prison for tax evasion, and proceedings also pit him against his former agent Meïssa Ndiaye.
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Born in Sarcelles, in the Paris region, Wissam Ben Yedder came from futsal, a discipline to which he owes his technical ease and in which he was also international. He made his debut in professional football in Toulouse before joining Sevilla FC.
Arriving in Monaco in 2019, he scored 118 goals in 201 matches for the principality club, of which he was captain for a long time. But discussions regarding an extension quickly collapsed and the player with 19 caps and three goals for Blue left AS Monaco almost on the sly at the end of the season.
