Karim Benzema becomes latest European footballer to be burgled while playing
The list of victims is increasing but the modus operandi is always the same: wait until a footballer is out of the house at a big game, break in and rob them.
The latest to join the list of burgled footballers is Karim Benzema, whose house was burgled on Wednesday while he was playing with Real Madrid in the second leg of the semi-final of the Copa del Rey against Barcelona.
It was a night to forget for the French striker, who could not help his team avoid a 3-0 defeat against the Catalan side which knocked them out of the competition.
Two weeks ago the same thing happened to Kevin-Prince Boateng, signed by Barcelona in January, who was robbed as he played a match against Valladolid in La Liga.
A similar thing happened to his team-mate Jordi Alba last November.
They were in Milan for a Champions League match against Inter when the thieves entered his house and managed to force the safe.
In France
The problem is not exclusive to Spain. Indeed, there were four footballers robbed in France last week alone.
According to the Nanterre public prosecutor’s office on the outskirts of Paris on Sunday, the home of Brazilian Dani Alves was robbed while he played in a game with PSG against Montpellier at the Parc des Princes stadium in the French capital.
The newspaper L’Equipe reported that the robbers took valuables and tens of thousands of dollars.
Meanwhile, Lyon’s Memphis Depay, Lucas Tousart and Pape Cheikh Diop were robbed as they faced off against Barcelona for the Champions League on Tuesday.
This came on top of burglaries at the homes of the president of Marseille, Jacques-Henri Eyraud, and those of Paris Saint-Germain players Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting (twice in November and December) and Thiago Silva (December).
In England
The practice of breaking into footballers’ houses while they are absent with their teams is not new.
Between 2006 and 2009, for example, 21 footballers in the north west of England were robbed.
The most recent reported case is that of Senegalese Sadio Mane, who had watches, mobile phones and car keys stolen while playing at Anfield against Bayern Munich in the Champions League – the same night as the Lyon robberies.
Mane, who was also robbed in 2017, was already part of a long list of more than 20 players from Liverpool and other clubs in the region that have been victims of crime in the last 15 years.
Roberto Firmino, Steven Gerrard and Pepe Reina were all robbed while Liverpool players. Outside of that city they are joined by Romelu Lukaku, Wayne Rooney and Paraguayan Roque Santa Cruz, who was robbed at his home in December 2008 when he was playing for Blackburn Rovers.
But the thieves have not always got away so easily. Back in 2003, Everton’s Duncan Ferguson happened to be home when a thief named Carl Bishop tried to steal a cask of alcohol.
When Bishop encountered Ferguson, he tried to smash a bottle of vodka over the footballer’s head – but Ferguson hit him in the face.
The force of the punch was so powerful, Bishop was hospitalised for two days.
It was the second time Ferguson had stopped an attempted robbery at home – during a similar encounter in 2001, he rang the police and then incapacitated the thief by sitting on him until the police arrived.
