Support from France’s highest judicial court – the Court of Cassation – could see Karim Benzema absolved from claims that he aided an attempted blackmail of former international teammate Mathieu Valbuena.
Benzema, 29, was accused of acting as an intermediary for blackmailers who obtained a sex tape featuring Valbuena. Benzema’s appeal to have the case dropped was rejected by the Appeal Court last December, but Tuesday’s backing from another court gives the Real Madrid striker hope of ending a scandal which began when he was arrested in November 2015.
“It’s definitely a big victory,” lawyer Patrice Spinosi told France Info, according to BBC News, declaring it a turning point in the investigation.
The prestigious Court of Cassation’s decision will force Benzema’s plea to be heard again by the Court of Appeal’s examining chamber, and BBC News understands it will have no choice but to throw out the case. Still, this eventuality could be months away.
(Photo courtesy: Action Images)
When blackmailers contacted Valbuena to inform him that they’d got hold of a sex tape, he was asked to appoint a middle-man to negotiate the video not being made public. A police officer, given the false name Lukas, was drafted in as the go-between by Valbuena.
A childhood friend of Benzema’s was asked for help by the blackmailers to strike a deal with Valbuena, and it was then that Benzema allegedly urged Valbuena to pay up while both were with the French national team in October 2015.
Benzema’s lawyer Spinosi alleges that the police officer worked hard in trying to find an agreement between the blackmailers and Valbuena, and that no criminal proceedings would’ve occurred without his dishonesty.
Since Benzema was taken in for questioning over 20 months ago, neither he or Valbuena have represented their country. Benzema is still on the books of Real Madrid, while the alleged 32-year-old victim switched Lyon for Fenerbahce of the Turkish Super Lig in June.
ASHBURN, Va. — Shortly after receiving his new dumbbell set, Washington Redskins running back Samaje Perine, then around 12-years-old, realized it wasn’t enough. He needed more weight. But rather than ask his mom for a new set, he found bricks, duct-taped them to the dumbbells and proceeded with his workouts.
And a legend was born. Sort of. His ingenuity, and love of working out, placed him on a path to the NFL. It helped him top Adrian Peterson in one area, lifting a car and becoming an almost mythical figure in the Oklahoma Sooners weight room. One story toppled another.
Even now, his mother shrugs her shoulders at the memory of his first dumbbell set.
“All he had to do was ask for a new set, and we would have gotten him more,” his mother, Gloria Perine said.
That strength is one reason why he was good enough that Washington drafted him in the fourth round. It helped him rush for an NCAA-record 427 yards in one game as a freshman. It broke the spirit of defenders throughout his college tenure.
“I remember defensive backs checking out of the game like, ‘I’m done tackling this guy,'” said Oklahoma’s Jerry Schmidt, the Sooners’ strength coach whose official title is director of sports enhancement.
Here are tales about Perine’s feats of strength:
Lifting cars: Late one night in the summer of 2015, Perine noticed a woman with a flat tire in the parking lot of the Bud Wilkinson House on Oklahoma’s campus. She didn’t have a car jack.
“So I just helped her out,” he said.
By lifting the car so the back left tire could be changed. Perine’s mom said he would only laugh when she asked him about it, not knowing if it was myth or real. But it was real. Perine sort of shrugged it off by pointing out it was “a pretty small car. A Smart Car.” They weigh 1,500 pounds.
“If you lift one side, the whole side is coming up,” he said. “It was kind of heavy … I mean, I wouldn’t say it was easy. It’s still a car.”
Perine said he was alone, but Oklahoma running back Daniel Brooks once told Soonersports.com that he saw what happened. Brooks added to the myth when he told the website, “He was curling the car, too, I think.”
Perine laughs.
“That part is made up,” he said.
Balcony pull-ups: At their two-story house in Pflugerville, Texas, Perine, sometime around his freshman year of high school, found another way to work out. He did pull-ups on their second-floor balcony.
“Which freaked me out,” Gloria Perine said. “He would hang up there and do pull-ups, which was pretty scary.”
The rails on the balcony did not go all the way down to the floor, leaving a gap so Perine could hang off the balcony with his hands on the floor and pull himself up.
The only thing between Perine and the ground: a flower bed.
Did he ever fall?
“Not that I know of,” she said.
Deck of card workouts: Before heading home for a break during his sophomore year, Perine asked an Oklahoma assistant strength coach for a strenuous workout he could do at home. So the assistant, Mahala Wiggins, suggested using a deck of cards.
Every card was assigned a point value. In Perine’s workouts, a king, for example, would be worth 25. Whatever card he pulled, that’s how many sit-ups or push-ups he’d do. In his numbering system, a deck would equate to 792 reps. He’d finish an entire deck — for both sit-ups and push-ups. Now that he’s away from the Redskins facility, Perine said he’d resume these workouts.
“I always work out when I go home,” he said. “I’m never the type to sit down and chill out too long. I have to keep moving do something else or I get bored. I eat too much just to be bored so I find a way to work out.”
Stronger than Adrian Peterson: The one-time Sooner great, and future NFL Hall of Famer, was known for his strength as well. Schmidt said Peterson’s bench was around 390 or 400 pounds. Schmidt said Perine’s max bench was 440 pounds. That’s like benching an average-sized piano — with a small child sitting on it.
Of course, the 217-pound Peterson ran the 40-yard dash in 4.41 seconds at the combine, broad-jumped 10 feet, seven inches and had a vertical leap of 38.5 inches. Perine ran a 4.65; had a vertical of 33 inches and a broad jump of 9-feet, eight inches. But at 238 pounds, those are still solid numbers.
“The way Samaje explodes and his low center of gravity … that’s what makes him,” Schmidt said. “His legs are the size of tree trunks. AD would run higher, but he’s faster.
“Samaje is so explosive, and Adrian was the same way. There’s a 20-pound weight difference, but the amount of explosion and the amount of power these guys have is ridiculous.”
But Perine said, “AP’s in a whole other league.”
Still, Schmidt said some linemen can bench what Perine does, but they can’t match his squat (540) or power clean (380). Perine said he once squatted 600 pounds in high school.
“No one was lifting more [at Oklahoma],” Schmidt said. “It wasn’t even close.”
Sometimes, when Perine would get in position to lift the amount of weights coaches had placed on the bar, he’d shoot a glance at the strength coaches.
“The main thing is just the look you get from him like, ‘Is this all you’ve got?'” said Schmidt, Oklahoma’s strength coach for the past 18 years. “It’s hard to explain as a coach when a guy looks at you like that. I thought I’d do something to him, and he’s laughing at this.”
Perine said now when he does squats, he’ll do five sets of eight repetitions squat between 315-345 pounds and two sets of 10 at 285 pounds. Instead of benching this spring, he’d bench dumbbells, with 115 pounds in each hand. At the combine, he benched 225 pounds 30 times — only four offensive linemen did more. And Perine said he once did 35 reps of 225 pounds in high school.
“I just see what I’m doing as being the norm for me,” he said. “I love the weight room, and I love to work out.”
Away from the controversy of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, and the overdue publication of the Garcia Report, video assistant referees are helping to shine a positive light on FIFA.
Speaking at a news conference in St. Petersburg, FIFA president Gianni Infantino supported the use of video assistant referees at the 2018 World Cup and said the Confederations Cup would be subject to more injustice without the technology.
“Nothing is standing in the way of using VARs (at the World Cup), as far as I’m concerned,” Infantino declared, according to the Guardian. “So far it has been successful. “We are learning, we are improving, we are continuing the tests.”
Infantino stated: “Without the VARs, we would have had a different tournament. And a tournament which would have been a little less fair.” The bald president added: “We need to work still on some of he details, on the communication and the speed of the decisions being taken.”
At the Confederations Cup, two video assistant referees are assigned to each game to support the referees’ decision-making process. They are used in four match-changing situations and aim to provide “minimum interference with maximum benefit.”
By FIFA’s count, video assistant referees corrected six game situations so far at the Confederations Cup. The technology caused controversy in a number of matches, including Germany’s 3-1 victory over Cameroon, in which two reviews were needed after a red card was shown to the incorrect footballer. Chile’s 2-0 win against the Indomitable Lions also had controversial moments, as La Roja was denied of a goal that appeared legitimate before an offside decision was overturned.
Our NFC North reporters take a look at which of the new faces could make the biggest impact in the division.
Rob Demovsky, Green Bay Packers reporter: The Minnesota Vikings’ running back. Or I should say running backs. Latavius Murray proved in Oakland that he can be a workhorse with 461 carries over the past two seasons. Add second-round pick Dalvin Cook — one of the top running backs in the draft — and the Vikings might have replaced Adrian Peterson better than anyone could have expected. The Murray-Cook combination should take pressure off quarterback Sam Bradford, who badly needed help from the running game last season.
New Packers tight end Martellus Bennett gives QB Aaron Rodgers another proven playmaker to utilize. AP Photo/Matt Ludtke
Jeff Dickerson, Chicago Bears reporter: Martellus Bennett. The veteran tight end should be a huge weapon for Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay. I covered Bennett for three (often unusual) years in Chicago. He’s the ultimate Sunday player. Bennett doesn’t do much at practice, but he shows up ready to play on game day. It sometimes takes two or three defenders to bring him down after the catch. I think Packers fans will appreciate that toughness, and so will Rodgers.
Ben Goessling, Minnesota Vikings reporter: Given what Jared Cook meant to the Packers’ offense during their late-season surge, it was puzzling that GM Ted Thompson didn’t try to re-sign the tight end — until Thompson brought in Bennett. He’s bigger than Cook, has been more productive in his career and came at a price (three years, $21 million) that didn’t require the Packers to overextend themselves. Bennett and Lance Kendricks will join an offense that’s stocked, as usual, with weapons for Rodgers. That’s not a bad idea, in light of how much the Packers are expecting to get from young defensive backs.
Michael Rothstein, Detroit Lions reporter: This is a tough question because there are a lot of players with similar levels of importance, but Minnesota adding Murray might end up being the best signing in the short term (with Cook helping in the long term). Murray is not Peterson, but he’s a durable running back who has averaged 4.2 yards per carry in his career and has 20 touchdowns. He can offer Minnesota stability and balance in the running game and might be an excellent pairing with Cook for the Vikings.
