The president of Sporting de Portugal, Frederico Varandas, denounced having been “subject to verbal attacks and attempted physical attacks” this Friday “by Vítor Baíavice president of Porto; Sérgio Conceição, the team’s coach, and Rui Cerqueira, the club’s press director” after the draw (2-2) between Sporting de Portugal and Porto in a League match played this Friday.
The Sporting assured this Saturday in a statement that “after the president’s statements” and “when he was going to the team bus”, Varandas met with Baía, Conceiçao and Cerqueira. The latter pounced “violently” against “the president of Sporting, taking his wallet with his mobile phone, personal identification documents and credit cards out of his hand, and immediately fled”.
“Despite the presence of the police at the scene, the device and the documents were not found (…) El Sporting will denounce Vítor Baía, Sérgio Conceição and Rui Cerqueira. And he will do everything possible so that those responsible for these acts are prohibited from accessing sports venues.”
“These are acts in which they are repeat offenders, since they have a long history of intimidating journalists, spectators and opponents, as is public knowledge.” In addition, the verdiblanco club indicated that it will carry out an investigation into “The attacks against Sporting players by elements outside the field of play, and which are documented in images for everyone to see”.
“What happened yesterday, on and off the pitch, is too serious not to have consequences,” adds the Sporting Portugalwho will not “abandon this fight” to “protect sport and citizens”.