'No animosity' from Valbuena towards Benzema over sex tape affair

"There was no animosity before and there still is none," Didier Domat, representing Valbuena, as he called for "prudence" after extracts were released to the press of telephone recordings of Benzema discussing the affair.

"One cannot remain indifferent to what one sees in the press. Certainly if we discover that all this is true, he (Valbuena) will not be his friend," continued the lawyer for the 31-year-old Lyon player.

Benzema, 27, was last Thursday charged with complicity to blackmail and conspiring to commit a criminal act, charges that carry a prison sentence of at least five years, in relation to a sex tape featuring Valbuena.

He was also banned from meeting Valbuena, whose current club Lyon is where where Benzema began his career.

French radio station Europe 1 on Tuesday reported extracts of investigators' transcriptions of a phone conversation on October 6 between Benzema and one of his friends, who is presented as an intermediary for the presumed blackmailers.

In the extract, Benzema discusses with the friend, Karim Zenati, an exchange he had with Valbuena the previous day during a France squad get-together.

He is said to have told Valbuena: "If you want the video to be destroyed, my friend will come to see you in Lyon. Speak to him.

"You can see everything. As far as I am concerned you can do as you wish. If you don't want to, it's your life, I warned you."

Domat added: "We will not make assumptions until we have studied the case."