Photo: Eyewitness News
Former South African international Benni McCarthy was robbed at gunpoint yesterday in South Africa.
McCarthy won the UEFA Champions League as a FC Porto player in 2004 and is currently a coach with Hibernian FC in Edinburgh.
According to his agent Percy Adams, the player was specifically targeted by the gunmen who demanded his watch, earrings and wedding ring. Adams confirmed to Eyewitness News in Johannesburg that the player was unhurt.
“The one guy closed the door and told everyone to sit down and be calm, the other said ‘please give us your watch, earrings and that nice wedding ring’.
He was pointing the gun in his face the whole time and he kept telling him to hurry up.”
EWN reported that after McCarthy had flown from Paris to the OR Tambo International Airport, and gone for a haircut in Corlett Drive in Melrose where three armed men robbed him. Gauteng police are studying CCTV footage of the incident.
McCarthy is South Africa’s record goal-scorer with 32 goals in 80 appearances. His club career also saw time in Spain with Celta Vigo, the Netherlands with Ajax and in England with West Ham and Blackburn.
This is not the first violent attack on a Bafana Bafana player. South Africa goalkeeper and captain Senzo Meyiwa was shot and killed in an apparent house robbery near Johannesburg last year.
