Benjamin Mendy Sells World Cup Trophy Replica Amid Controversy
Benjamin Mendy has never been far from a headline. Now he has written another one by doing what few World Cup winners would even contemplate: selling his official replica of the trophy France lifted in Moscow in 2018.
The defender’s miniature of football’s most coveted prize went under the hammer in the Global Football Auction Part 2, run by US memorabilia specialists Goldin. The final price: 62,000 dollars, roughly 54,000 euros, paid by a collector eager to own a slice of the night Les Bleus conquered Croatia.
For many fans, that slice should never have been on the market at all. The backlash was immediate. A World Cup trophy, even a replica, is sacred ground in the eyes of supporters; something to be cherished, displayed, passed down, not cashed in.
Mendy’s response was as sharp as it was unapologetic.
“Is this my trophy or yours?” he fired back on Snapchat. “In the end it belongs to me, and I do with it as I please.”
No contrition. No softening of the edges. Just ownership.
He then leaned into the storm with a touch of sarcasm, quoted by France’s RMC: the trophy, he joked, had been taking up too much space in his cupboard. For a player whose career has veered from record-breaking transfer fees to courtrooms and long absences from the game, it was a pointed way of saying that, to him, the object no longer defined the memory.
And he was not done. Mendy even hinted that this might only be the start of his clear-out.
“And by the way, I still have more titles up for sale,” he added, suggesting that medals and mementos from a decorated spell at the top could soon follow the World Cup replica out of his house and into private collections.
It underlines how loaded that 2018 triumph has become in the story of his life. On paper, it is just one line in a glittering CV. Before Russia, Mendy had already risen fast: a Ligue 1 title with Monaco in 2017, then a 58 million euro move to Manchester City that briefly made him the most expensive defender in the world.
At City, between 2017 and 2023, he stacked up silverware. Eight trophies in total, including four Premier League titles, in a squad that set new standards for domestic dominance. He earned 10 caps for France and took his place in Didier Deschamps’ World Cup-winning group, part of a generation that delivered the country’s second star.
Then everything stopped.
In 2021, Mendy faced several charges of rape and attempted rape. His career froze as the legal process took over his life. He spent time in detention. The gap stretched from months into years. The player who once bombed up and down the left flank for one of the world’s richest clubs disappeared from the pitch.
In July 2023, the court cleared him of all charges. The verdict closed the case but could not erase more than two years out of the game, a period that left deep marks on his career and reputation.
His return has been far from the glare of the Premier League spotlight. Mendy rebuilt step by step: first back in France with Lorient, then to Switzerland with Zurich, and now in Poland with Pogon Szczecin, where he is under contract until June 2027. The journey from World Cup podium to Ekstraklasa grounds tells its own story about how far and how fast a football life can swing.
Against that backdrop, the decision to sell his World Cup replica takes on a different tone. For some, it looks like sacrilege. For Mendy, it seems more like a line in the sand — a statement that the object, however iconic, no longer carries the same weight as the years that followed it.
The medal remains. The cap numbers do not change. The memories from Russia are his alone. The trophy, though, now sits in someone else’s cabinet, while Mendy laces his boots in Poland and tries to build something resembling a normal career.
The question is no longer what that World Cup meant. It is what the rest of his footballing life will look like without it on his shelf.
