Portugal coach Paulo Bento said clubs should stay out of the national team’s business after Porto’s president criticised the decision to play an international friendly in Gabon this week a few days before a Champions League round. “I don’t meddle in the work of club presidents so I do not accept interferences in my role, be it from Porto’s president or any other,” Bento said in televised remarks on Friday.
Jorge Pinto da Costa, Porto’s long-time president, launched a scathing attack on the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) on Thursday after Portugal had drawn 2-2 with Gabon in a friendly in Libreville. “They took the players to wherever they wanted without paying a thing, to a pitch with no conditions at all, and a very humid climate. It’s deplorable,” the 74-year-old Pinto da Costa said. “Playing in Gabon at a time when clubs are involved in the Champions League was absurd. I regret Portugal’s sports secretary of state did not intervene. It is scandalous.”
