Le Monde newspaper asked Valbuena whether Benzema had just urged him to meet the blackmailers. "Incite, that means 'you will have to pay' indirectly," Valbuena replied in his first public comments on the affair. "He was not aggressive in his manner of talking. But when someone insists that I meet someone ... hmmmm. I have never met anyone who is going to destroy a video for free," Valbuena said. "I am very very very disappointed and I can only note that my relations with Karim were not as sincere as he makes out," he added.
AFP