Sporting CP president Bruno de Carvalho has denied he’s received any bids for João Mário or Islam Slimani. Both the players have been linked to Premier League clubs lately, and despite the claims made by the Portuguese press, the club boss said he’s still to receive official offers for their stars.
“So far, since January, the only bid that arrived to Alvalade was the one I said (€80m from China for Slimani). All the rest is false,” said Bruno de Carvalho (via Record).
“They say there was a bid from PSG, we said no and João Mário got upset; then, there was Leicester for Slimani, we refused and the player got upset – if there were those amounts, I must say I’d turn it down, but no bids have arrived.”
It looks like even Bruno de Carvalho is tired of so much speculation surrounding these players. Especially on Slimani’s case, with the Portuguese media saying there were bids from Crystal Palace, Leicester and Everton earlier this year, but nobody activated the €30m release clause, which expired this month.
João Mário had reportedly received a €50m bid from Chelsea, which is pretty close to his €60m buyout clause, but now that’s been denied too.
The Portuguese newspapers always seem to jump the gun when they talk about approaches and bids, although these rumours only help the clubs to increase their star’s prices. But in this case, Bruno de Carvalho hasn’t shown much friendship to the them, but then, his own credibility was recently damaged after losing a legal case to Doyen Sports, and pushing Sporting into a financial corner.
