SPORT: Football
Benjamin Mendy, 27, is now accused of seven rapes and sexual assault.

Man­ches­ter City star Ben­jamin Mendy has been charged with a sev­enth count of rape by a new plaintiff.

The charges now relate to five com­plainants over the age of 16 and are believed to have tak­en place between Octo­ber 2020 and August 2021.

Co-accused Louis Saha Mat­turie, 40, is charged with six counts of rape and one of sex­u­al assault.

The charges against him con­cern four plain­tiffs over the age of 16 and alleged­ly took place between March 2021 and August 2021.

Mendy and Mat­turie are due to stand tri­al on Jan­u­ary 24 next year, but Judge Patrick Thomp­son said the date seemed “unre­al­is­tic”.

The France inter­na­tion­al has been held at HMP Alt­course in Liv­er­pool since being charged with four counts of rape and sex­u­al assault on August 26.

All of the offens­es were said to have tak­en place at his home in Cheshire.

He is accused of rap­ing a woman three times in Octo­ber last year.

He alleged­ly raped a sec­ond woman while on bail by police in August.

The foot­baller is also accused of sex­u­al assault in ear­ly January

The offens­es were said to have tak­en place in Mac­cles­field, Cheshire, on July 24 and August 23 of this year.

At a pre­vi­ous hear­ing, his lawyer Christo­pher Sta­bles said he vig­or­ous­ly denied the allegations.

Pre­mier League cham­pi­ons City spent £ 49.2million to sign Mendy for the French side of Mona­co in 2017.

He earns £ 90,000 a week and lives in a £ 5million man­sion in Prest­bury, an upscale vil­lage near Man­ches­ter pop­u­lar with oth­er players.

He was part of the France team that won the World Cup in 2018, but did not play in the final. He has made 75 appear­ances for Man City since sign­ing from Mona­co in 2017.

Mendy has appeared in Man City’s first two games this sea­son against Leices­ter City and Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur but was on the bench for his third game against Nor­wich City.

The next game was against Arse­nal, when he was charged.

In Sep­tem­ber last year, City boss Pep Guardi­o­la revealed that Mendy would be out of the game for at least a month due to injury.

City then sus­pend­ed the left-back after being charged.

In a state­ment, the club said: “Man­ches­ter City can con­firm that after being charged by police today, Ben­jamin Mendy has been sus­pend­ed pend­ing an investigation.

“The mat­ter is the sub­ject of legal pro­ceed­ings and the club are there­fore not in a posi­tion to make any fur­ther com­ments until these pro­ceed­ings are completed.”