Porto youth benched after selfie with friend in Benfica scarf | OneFootball

David Sualehe, currently serving at FC Noah in Armenia, began his training at CAC Pontinha and went through the youth academies of Sporting and FC Porto before reaching the senior level, where he played for clubs like V. Guimarães, Farense, Paços de Ferreira, and Académica. His departure from FC Porto was marked by a controversy related to an incident involving Benfica scarves – which forced him to apologize – and he recalled this to ‘Tribuna Expresso’.

“I was a junior player at FC Porto and my father was the agent of Rui Vitória, who at the time was the coach of Benfica. My championship was ending. It's needless to say that between FC Porto and Benfica there is a fierce rivalry. That year, Benfica's A team became champions, and on the day Benfica went to play the title match, I was driving to Lisbon with two friends. Since I signed with FC Porto, I genuinely supported FC Porto, it was FC Porto I wanted to win, it was my club at the time. But, as I said, I was in the car with two friends, taking one of them to Lisbon. She was going to watch the game and had a Benfica scarf with her. I ended up being a bit naive. We took a selfie, it was something meant to stay between us, I even said, don't post this anywhere, because I'm a FC Porto player and I can't take such photos. She said it was to keep, just for us. But then, she sent the selfie to some friend, and the photo started circulating and spreading, we all know how social media and the internet world work. It caused a huge problem, that photo ended up everywhere, with the fans, the management, and people saw it as disrespectful. I know what happened, it wasn't like that, it was an unfortunate situation. But from then on, things started to deteriorate a lot at FC Porto. I ended up being removed from the team, I didn't play anymore until the end of the season, my coach, Folha, asked the FC Porto officials for me to stay with the team because I was an important player in the group, but I couldn't play, only train. I trained with them until the end, we became champions. I was in talks to renew with FC Porto before this happened, but due to the situation, it was unthinkable,” he stated.

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