Benjamin Mendy urges Manchester City to 'do the honourable thing' and return unpaid wages

Former Manchester City defender Benjamin Mendy has urged Manchester City 'to do the honourable thing' and stump up wages withheld after he was wrongly accused of raping women.

The former Blues defender sued the club for over £11m in 'unauthorised deductions' from his pay whilst he was accused of rape, attempted rape, and sexual assault. He was later found not guilty of all the charges.

The French World Cup winner took the club to an Employment Tribunal over the payments, which was heard over two days last month. In a ruling published today (Wednesday), employment judge Joanne Dunlop said: "I have concluded that Mr Mendy is entitled to recover some, but not all, of the sums claimed."

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She ruled in favour of Mr Mendy apart from the periods when he breached bail 'due to his own culpable actions'.

Mr Mendy said in a statement: “Today the employment tribunal upheld the main part of my claim against Manchester City Football Club for unpaid wages, finding that the club had unlawfully made deductions from my wages for a total period of 16 months and 23 days.

"Having had to wait for three years for my wages, I am delighted with the decision and sincerely hope that the club will now do the honourable thing and pay the outstanding amounts, as well as the other amounts promised to me under the contract, without further delay, so I can finally put this difficult part of my life behind me."

The ruling means he is due an estimated £8m in wages.

The defender, who joined French Second Division side Lorient on a free transfer last summer, thanked his friends, family, agent and legal team.

The employment tribunal judge, in her ruling, said: "I doubt that quite so much legal expertise and endeavour has ever before been expended in the prosecution and defence of a wages claim brought by a single claimant. But then, I am also fairly sure that no other single claimant has ever alleged that sums in the region of £11 million have been deducted from his wages."

She added: "I found that Mr Mendy was 'ready and willing' to work during the non-custody periods, and was prevented from doing so by impediments (the FA suspension and bail conditions) which were unavoidable or involuntary on his part.

"In those circumstances, and absent any authorisation in the contract for the employer to withhold pay, he was entitled to be paid. In contrast, during the periods when he was remanded in custody, his inability to perform the contract was, in part, due to his own culpable actions in breaching his bail conditions. In those circumstances, I have found that the Club was entitled to withhold pay for those periods."

The club continued paying Mr Mendy his £500k a month salary following his first arrest in November 2020. However they stopped doing so in September 2021, after he was charged with the first set of offences, the tribunal was told.

He spent a total of five months in custody on remand, and when released was subject to strict bail conditions, as well as an interim suspension order by the Football Association (FA) which prohibited him in taking part in 'any football-related activity'.

His contract expired in June 2023, before he was cleared of the final two charges against him at a retrial the following month. The money withheld over a period of 22 months was never repaid.

Court documents shared with the tribunal said Mr Mendy 'very quickly ran out of money' and had to sell his Cheshire mansion to cover legal fees, bills and child support payments after his wages were withheld. “I struggled to pay my child support, I felt awful,” the footballer said in a written witness statement.

He said his agent Meissa N’diaye, paid towards his legal fees, while teammates including England international Raheem Sterling offered 'financial support'. “Raheem Sterling, Bernardo Silva and Riyad Mahrez all lent me money to help me try and pay my legal fees and support my family,” he said.

Mr Mendy said the restrictions that stopped him from being able to play were a consequence of the unproven allegations against him and that under the terms of his £6 million a year, six-year contract, the club were not entitled to deduct his pay, but that they did so contrary to section 13 of the Employment Rights Act 1996.

He said other players 'including the club captain' had attended parties he hosted at his then-home in Mottram St Andrew. and said it was 'incredibly unjust that Manchester City effectively singled me out from the team when I was doing nothing different to the rest of the team'.

"The difference between me and the other Manchester City players is that I was the one that was falsely accused of rape and publicly humiliated" he added.

City's barrister, Sean Jones KC, argued Mr Mendy's incarceration was a 'consequence of his behaviour' after he held parties and gatherings at his Cheshire mansion in breach of bail conditions and lockdown rules.

"His behaviour fell little short of demanding to be locked up," he said.

Sports lawyer Nick De Marco KC, representing Mr Mendy, accused City of launching an 'attack' on Mr Mendy's character and a "re-trial of his private life." He said his client had made mistakes but had already "paid a very high price."

Mendy, who cost the Blues £52 million in 2017, joined French Second Division side Lorient on a free transfer last summer. In April, a High Court tax debt case against Mr Mendy was dismissed after he paid a £700,000 bill.