Ribery In Court …Over Unpaid Commission

Franck Ribery made an appearance on court on Tuesday after his former agent claimed the Bayern Munich star owed him €3.5million (£3.1m).

Bruno Heiderscheid claims he is owed the figure as commission from Ribery’s £27m transfer from Marseille to Bayern in 2007. Ribery is contesting the claim.

The agent claims there was a verbal agreement made, and later, a physical document, which was shown to the court. But Ribery insists that his signature on the document had been forged.

‘I have never seen this document before,’ Ribery told the German news agency DPA.

He also said that he had ‘never had a discussion on this topic with Mr Heiderscheid’.

Wearing a black suit and jacket, Ribery looked stressed and emotional in court and held his head in his hands before the start of proceedings.

A verdict has been postponed until January 16 after Heiderscheid was unable to appear in the Munich courtroom after his flight from Brussels was cancelled.

‘I am very calm about the decision which will be made,’ Heiderscheid told AFP. ‘He (Ribery) will have to deal with all the consequences.’

Ribery, 34, recently returned to the Bayern side after a knee injury, starting in both Saturday’s 1-0 victory at Eintracht Frankfurt and last week’s impressive Cham[pions League win over Paris Saint-Germain.