Portuguese side Sporting "overwhelmingly" voted to eject President Bruno de Carvalho in a bid to save the club after nine players "quit in protest at an attack in May by angry fans who had allegedly been spurred by his public rebuke of the team," according to Andrei Khalip of REUTERS. More than 71% of nearly 15,000 paying members of the Lisbon-based club who cast their ballot on Saturday voted to "relieve de Carvalho of his duties after five years in the job." In a "long, rambling post on Facebook," de Carvalho called the result "one of the greatest frauds ever seen" and said that it was perpetuated by "a bunch of cretins who rigged the vote," but added that he "would obey it." He wrote, "What ingratitude and injustice." He also accused "an elite" of senior club members and shareholders of "staging a coup against him to preserve their power." De Carvalho was previously suspended by an interim Sporting governing body but "refused to heed it and continued to work." He also blamed other clubs for poaching players in what he said was “a concerted attack on Sporting" (REUTERS, 6/24).
