Exceptional guest of Europe 1 Sport, Real Madrid president Florentino Perez regretted the absence of Karim Benzema in the France team, while the former Lyonnais has not been called to the Blues for more than five years.
"It's a huge mess," he said.
INTERVIEW
Star adored in his club, undesirable among the Blues, such is the paradoxical situation in which Karim Benzema has been for more than five years.
While he has scored more than 250 goals since his arrival at Real Madrid in 2009, and he has a very good season in La Liga, the striker has not been called up to the Blues since his indictment at the end of 2015 in the case of blackmail with the sextape exerted on Mathieu Valbuena, while the coach Didier Deschamps did not digest to have been accused by the former Lyonnais of having yielded to "a racist part of France" after his non-selection at Euro 2016. A situation that surprises the president of Real Madrid Florentino Perez, interviewed Sunday in Europe 1 Sport.
"It's a huge mess," he regrets.
"Karim is a unique player and I think his absence from the French selection is a huge waste," said the boss of the Madrid club.
According to him, "depriving yourself of the presence of the best 9 of the France team and the world is a situation that no one can understand".
"A Real Madrid legend"
If he is absent from the national team, the native of Bron is "a legend of Real Madrid", insists Florentino Perez, who had brought Benzema in 2009. "He has won the confidence and admiration of all Madrilenians" , he adds, and has won "a lot of titles" including four Champions Leagues.
For Florentino Perez, who highlights the behavior "exemplary" of his protégé, Karim Benzema "associated his name with the greatest strikers of Real Madrid" such as Di Stéfano or Cristiano Ronaldo, or Raúl.