The situation at Sporting can be quite humorous at times, with Bruno de Carvalho the madcap president moving like a tornado and causing devastation around the club.
But there’s a genuinely serious side to it all. Footballers have been assaulted, and there’s been more than one attempt to get at them… it wasn’t just the physical attacks on a number of players, and manager Jorge Jesus, at the club’s training ground.
The atmosphere that has been been built up around the club has made this kind of incident all the likelier and it’s no surprise several players want to leave.
Rui Patricio has been one of them and after a move to Napoli faltered, he came close to Wolves this week, only for it then to fall apart. Record newspaper, who cover Sporting closely, have blamed Bruno de Carvalho for asking for an extra €2m.
Bruno himself has blamed Gestifute and Jorge Mendes, in another example of denying that contractual obligations to agents and/or investment companies exist. He did this with Marcos Rojo and Doyen and ended up losing the case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Whatever the reason, and it may well take a court case to find out, the Wolves collapse was enough for Patricio and he’s rescinded his contract. Sporting may challenge that, but the goalkeeper has sent an official 34 page letter cancelling the contract, this isn’t a threat to do so – he’s done it.
O Jogo have managed to get hold of the letter and have published parts.
Patricio claims that a ‘succession of events’ which are attributable to Sporting prove the club haven’t kept up their side of ‘legal and contractual obligations’ in the contract and therefore he believes it can be considered cancelled.
Perhaps in the most crucial, and saddest, part the footballer has claimed: ‘attacks on my professional and personal dignity, have, in addition, put in question my security and physical integrity, making me fear for my life’
And there can be no doubt who the Wolves target feels is to blame: ‘As of January this year the president has begun putting unacceptable pressure on all players and the team, implying that the bad results would be the responsibility of the lack of professionalism of the players.’
It shouldn’t be too hard to back that up, given Bruno’s rants on Facebook doing exactly what has been claimed. The document is lengthy and Patricio clearly has a lot of grievances with Sporting, and he won’t be the only player to feel that way.
