Ex-Sporting chief allegedly 'ordered the kidnapping' of former player | OneFootball

It wouldn’t be a week in football without a crazy story from Sporting Lisbon.

And thankfully this week is no exception.

For the uninitiated, Bruno de Carvalho, former president of the Portuguese giants, is a bit of a wrong ‘un.

He’s alleged to have allowed fans to attack the team at their training base in May this year, and was subsequently voted out of office by their members over the summer.

He’s since been arrested by Portuguese police and is due to find out his sentence within the next few days.

But on top of all that, according to the agent of a former player, you can add an attempted kidnap five years’ ago.

Bruma, who came up through the Sporting academy before being sold to Galatasaray in 2013, is said to have almost been detained against his will by members of the Ultra group Juve Leo acting on the word of the former president.

Cátio Baldé, who represents the forward, has claimed that the president ordered an ambush on Bruma in a bid to get him to sign a contract extension.

“When Bruma arrived [at a hotel near Sete Rios, in Lisbon]  in his brand new Mercedes, he barely got out of the car before being surrounded by these tattooed, bald guys,” he said of the incident, which allegedly took place in the summer of 2013.

“They said ‘you have to accompany us because president Bruno de Carvalho wants to talk to you’.”

The agent then claims that having got back into his car and ordered to follow the men, Bruno sped away and phoned saying that he was “being chased” and was the victim of “an attempted abduction by Sporting fans”.

Nothing, thankfully, happened – but Cátio Baldé is convinced that the president ordered the kidnapping so as to force Bruma into signing a new contract.

Bruma eventually joined Galatasary and is now playing in Germany with RB Leipzig – where so far there’s been no alleged kidnappings.