Lisbon (AFP)
Forty Sporting supporters were convicted Thursday for invading the Portuguese club's training center to assault and threaten its footballers in May 2018, but former president Bruno de Carvalho, accused of being the moral author of these violence, was acquitted.
According to the judgment of a Lisbon court, nine of the defendants were sentenced to five years in prison, 29 of them received suspended sentences and three others were fined.
The former Sporting president from 2013 to 2018, a club official in charge of relations with supporters and the head of the main group of ultras were all acquitted after the prosecution itself admitted that it could not prove that they were the moral perpetrators of the assaults.
Shortly after Bruno de Carvalho publicly criticized his players, a group of supporters forced entry to the club's training center in Alcochete on May 15, 2018, attacking the players and their coaching staff, and ransacking their locker rooms.
"I was the victim of a very violent crime (...) I can finally get out of my two year confinement period", reacted to the exit of the court Mr. Carvalho, who had been released on bail in November 2018 after four days in police custody.
The events of May 2018 precipitated Sporting, reputed to have formed the five-time Golden Ball Cristiano Ronaldo, in a serious sports and financial crisis.
Sporting called on Thursday the world of sport "to unite so that events like this one do not repeat themselves more", in a statement published on its site.
© 2020 AFP