Benfica controversy: Vítor Pinto slams Aursnes, "This can't be true" | OneFootball

In a social media post, Fredrik Aursnes is seen next to Andreas Schjelderup on a padel court, causing controversy at a time when the midfielder is injured. Vítor Pinto cannot believe that the Norwegian engaged in any risky physical activity.

"This cannot be true. Aursnes playing padel while injured, this cannot be real, it must be some kind of montage that surely escaped our control because this is impossible to be real," he said during a debate on CMTV.

The deputy director of the newspaper Record further expressed his disbelief. "I cannot imagine any scenario where, given Aursnes's injury, it is admissible or professionally acceptable for the player to have gone to play padel without being penalized by Benfica", he stated.

To conclude, Vítor Pinto claimed that this episode is more serious than the one involving Richard Ríos, when the Colombian midfielder was seen at a concert at the Sol da Caparica festival just hours before a match. "This is 100 times worse than Richard Ríos going to see a Brazilian band on the eve of a game. There must be something here that is not right", he said.

However, according to media reports, Benfica sources assured that Aursnes gave an interview to a Norwegian channel as part of a program with players (including Schjelderup) from that country who are expected to participate in the final phase of the 2026 World Cup, and that the 30-year-old athlete only exchanged a few balls to create supplementary content for the interviews, not participating in an actual padel match.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.