He is the ex-soldier who socialised with some of the Premier League’s biggest names. A regular in the VIP sections of Manchester’s bars and nightclubs, Louis Saha Matturie moved in the world of celebrity.
Mr Mendy is now rebuilding his football career in his native France. The future is perhaps more uncertain for Mr Matturie. But who is Louis Saha Matturie, and how did he end up rubbing shoulders with some of the Premier League’s most famous faces? Mr Matturie was said to have been given cash, free meals at restaurants or use of Mendy's clothes or car. It was in this context that young women enjoyed the use of VIP lounges at Manchester nightclubs afforded by Mr Mendy's playboy lifestyle.
It was there that Mr Matturie was accused of raping two women, allegations which he has now been cleared of. Mr Matturie - who claimed to be a teetotaller - remained sober at the parties, where women as young as 17 were guests. Through Mendy, Mr Matturie fell into the orbit of other members of City’s glittering squad.
She came forward after seeing news of Mr Matturie’s arrest in 2021. Mr Matturie denied the allegation and was found not guilty at the first trial.A woman claimed she was sexually assaulted by Mr Matturie in Sheffield in 2016, after she had become friends with a group of men including Mr Matturie and brothers Claude Dielna and Joel Dielna, who then played for Sheffield Wednesday.
During the course of the evening, the woman said Matturie ‘insisted’ that she should accompany him to a shop to buy more alcohol. She alleged he sexually assaulted her in the car on the way back after arriving at Mr Mendy's home. Mr Matturie’s barrister said that they’d been ‘flirting’ that night and that they ‘drunkenly had consensual sex’. After returning to the house, Mr Matturie was accused of raping Woman A while they watched a basketball documentary on a sofa bed in a cinema room. Later that morning, Mr Matturie and Woman A caught a taxi to the apartment in Chapel Street, where he was accused of raping her a second time.