Boloni admits a Sporting player was using cocaine | OneFootball

Laszlo Boloni, former coach of Sporting, (who is about to release a documentary) admitted this Sunday, November 16, that Mário Jardel used drugs during his time with the Lions, specifically cocaine, and was even declared unfit to compete because of this.

"His father and mother were alcoholics, that was the problem. I would write the team on the board, in front of the players, put him in the starting eleven, and the doctor would signal to me that it wasn’t possible because Jardel... 'and he would make gestures with his nose.' They would do the test, to see if the doctor could give him the green light to play, and he tested positive," he described, speaking on the podcast ‘Vorbitorincii’.

The coach, now 72 years old, said that the striker missed 15 out of 34 league matches, due to alleged positive cocaine tests carried out by Sporting’s doctors, which prevented him from playing. Mário Jardel would eventually leave for the English club Bolton in the summer of 2023.

"I was a young coach, I made a great effort. I am at peace with my conscience, I did what I thought was right. One day I told him: 'I’m going to take you to the training camp with me. We’ll go and stay there, I’ll be in my room and you in yours. We’ll talk, eat, train, run.' He agreed. I kept the car keys and slept with him at the training center. I was working overtime that second season. Besides that, I would call Brazil, talk to his wife, Karen, and his daughter," before explaining that everything fell apart.

"It all started well, but then it became terrible. After six days he told me: 'I don’t feel well, I’ll have to leave for a while, but I’ll be back.' I replied: 'Mário, I know you. You’re not going anywhere. Let’s go outside, let’s run, do some exercise.' And he said: 'Yes, yes, but I’ll be back.' I knew he would never come back. He made a call, a taxi arrived, and he disappeared."

Laszlo Boloni acknowledges that the striker’s problems were a major blow: "Losing Mário Jardel in my second season at Sporting was a huge defeat for me. He had scored more than 40 goals in the first season; in the second, he was at six," he said sadly.

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