Unbelievable! Premier League club barred ex-Benfica star from space trip 🚀 | OneFootball

Sunderland prevented Stefan Schwarz from traveling to space, one of the lifelong dreams of the former player who played for Benfica, where he won two national championship titles. The revelation was made by John Flickling, who was the club's CEO at the time, in a recent interview with the BBC - at this time, another former Benfica player is also in the spotlight.

Sunderland signed Stefan Schwarz from Fiorentina in the late 90s for 6.2 million euros, a considerable amount at the time. The player believed that a trip would be possible in 2002, and he began to seriously consider this option, which was one of his dreams.

"We were concerned that he might want to take Stefan with him. So we thought it would be better to settle things now rather than at the time of the flight," John Flickling explained. This was because one of the player's advisors had secured tickets for such space trips.

Sunderland then decided to include a clause in the player's contract, stating that the contract would be terminated if he embarked on the trip: "It was a reasonable request. Normally, we would get insurance coverage for the player for the entire duration of his contract, but with many insurance policies, there are certain exclusions, such as dangerous activities."

"We were protecting the club. It was a slightly relaxed moment during prolonged negotiations. But one day it might be quite acceptable to include such clauses in various contracts," concluded John Flickling. Stefan Schwarz ended up not traveling to space, thus fulfilling the four-year contract he had with Sunderland.

Remember this moment between Schwarz and Guardiola:

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