The defender of the Olympique Lyonnais Jérôme Boateng was sentenced by a court in Munich, Thursday, September 9, to a 1.8 million euros fine for having violated in 2018 his ex-partner, mother of his two children.
At the end of a long day of hearing, the magistrates found him guilty of assault and battery.
His victim recounted in detail the facts that she accused him of - facts that he for his part denied.
He faced a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
The mother reported that, during a vacation in the Caribbean, the 33-year-old star player, former Bayern Munich and 2014 world champion, first threw a lantern at her during a heated argument.
Having missed her, he then aimed and hit her with an insulated box, which injured her right arm.
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"He stuck in one eye with his thumb," she then clarified. "He bit my head and pulled me to the ground by the hair."
The scene took place during a party in a luxury hotel, in July 2018, just after the pitiful elimination of Germany in the first round of the World Cup in Russia.
According to Jérôme Boateng, it is on the contrary his companion at the time who showed aggression and who even injured him on the lip by hitting him.
"I was not violent (...), I did not attack her", he assured, without convincing the magistrates.
The player was at the time in talks to join Paris Saint-Germain, and he says the argument focused on his partner's demands to follow him to Paris.
This transfer was finally aborted and Jérôme Boateng remained in Munich.
Removed from the German selection
The ex-couple are currently on trial to obtain custody of their 10-year-old twins, who live with him, and this issue was also, indirectly, one of the issues in the Munich trial.
The 30-year-old made the headlines in early September when he signed for two years with Olympique Lyonnais, after a decade crowned with multiple titles at Bayern.
He was at the end of his contract with Munich, where he won two Champions Leagues and nine German league titles.
Star of the national team during the world title in Brazil in 2014, he was dismissed by former coach Joachim Löw in early 2019, in the wake of the disaster in Russia.
In his first list last week, new coach Hansi Flick did not call on him.
But with the approach of the trial, the spotlight has once again turned to his private life, which provokes a lot of exchanges and comments - sometimes vigorous - on social networks, and makes the cabbage of the press.
Earlier this year, Jérôme Boateng experienced a private tragedy when his last girlfriend, Kasia Lenhardt, whom he had just left a few days earlier, was found dead in a Berlin apartment.
Justice concluded that it was a suicide.
Jérôme Boateng was at that time traveling with Bayern in Qatar where he was playing in the Club World Cup.
He immediately returned to Germany.
She also accused him of having abused her, before retracting, according to the Munich daily Süddeutsche Zeitung.
With AFP
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