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French defender, Benjamin Mendy has won his legal battle against his former club Manchester City for the majority of his unpaid wages while he faced rape charges.
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Mendy was cleared of raping a woman at his £4m mansion and trying to rape another woman following a trial last year.
City halted Mendy’s £500,000-a-month salary in 2021 when Mendy was arrested for the second time.
Mendy, who joined City for £49m from Monaco in 2017, responded by taking the Premier League champions to an employment tribunal, and he has won the fight for most of his unpaid salary after making a claim for ‘unauthorised deductions’ from his wages.
Mendy’s claim was for around £11m before tax. The tribunal’s verdict means he will be entitled to the majority of this figure but not all of it, having spent approximately five months in custody during the 22 months covered by the claim.
The exact amount is set to be agreed by the parties involved, or will be decided in a future hearing if an agreement cannot be reached.
The tribunal heard that City continued to pay Mendy after his first arrest in November 2020, but changed their stance when he was re-arrested the following year.
But Mendy’s contract stated that he would receive a 900,000 bonus for appearing in 60 per cent of matches, in addition to a £1m bonus if City qualified for the Champions League, and an annual £1.2m payment to his image rights company on top of his salary.
After being charged, Mendy was told by City chiefs that they would not be paying his salary as he was ‘not presently ready and able to perform the obligations of his contract’.
Mendy claims then-chief operating officer Omar Berrada assured him he would receive his wages once acquitted, but the tribunal heard Mendy received no response from Berrada or chief executive Khaldoon Al Mubarak when he reached out to the pair for clarification.
Mendy revealed to the court that his then-City team-mates Raheem Sterling, Bernardo Silva, and Riyad Mahrez helped him financially while his wages were withheld, and he was forced to sell his Cheshire mansion to pay his legal fees, bills, and for child support.
City argued in court that Mendy only had himself to blame for behaving irresponsibly, following reports the left back threw parties at the mansion during lockdown and breached his bail conditions.
Sean Jones KC, who represented City, said: ‘The essence of the submission by Mr Mendy is that his contract creates a moral hazard.
‘He says “I can behave as irresponsibly as I like, I can ignore all the rules, both legal, of the club and common sense to the point where my behaviour results in prison”.
‘He is trying to make a moral hazard into a virtue. He says “It should in no way affect my entitlement to pay. There should be no consequences to my behaviour”.’
Mendy now plays for Lorient in Ligue 2 after returning to France last year following the expiry of his City contract. He had not played for City since August 2021 after the rape allegations were made against him.
