For: EFE Posted 27 Jan 2023, 15:00 pm EST
A Marítimo player, the Portuguese Edgar Costa, denounced having been the object of an attempted bribery from a businessman so that his team lost a match against Benfica, according to what the Portuguese press published today.
The forward denounced that the businessman Miguel Pinho tried to bribe him to yield in a match against the “eagles”, revealed the Portuguese weekly Expresso.
Pinho, who denied the accusations to the newspaper, is the representative of soccer players such as the Portuguese internationals Bruno Fernandes (Manchester United) or Nuno Mendes (Paris Saint-Germain).
A random “shot” to the “beacon” of Benfica, in the 2nd part of the infamous Marítimo 0-2 Benfica 15/16 [qd já perdiam por 1 golo e jogavam com mais 1 jogador do q SLB]by Edgar Costa, who confirmed that he was alvo [tentativa?] as a subordinate to “”play badly and not finish off the beacon”. #Benfiquistão pic.twitter.com/LJCw8y3xna
— hello Your account has been suspended (@sporttvprocara1) January 27, 2023
The complaint would have occurred in a meeting in 2019 with a prosecutor in charge then of an investigation related to suspicions of corruption by Benfica.
In the statement to which Expresso has had access, Costa affirms that he received a telephone call from a businessman, that he invited him to a hotel in Funchal, the city where Marítimo plays, and that he accepted because he thought it would be a professional opportunity.
When he arrived at the hotel, the same individual who invited him, identified by Costa as Pinho, took him to a room where another man was.
Both assured him “that they were there on behalf of Benfica” and offered him $30,000. if “he was willing to play badly and not shoot on goal” in the match against the Portuguese colossus.
He was also promised a new and better contract at an unspecified clubbut the player turned it down because he wanted to remain “a free man.”
The media also reveals that Edgar Costa was one of the two Marítimo footballers who participated, anonymously, in another report on the SIC television channel in 2018 about alleged corruption linked to Benfica.
Then, Costa and another unidentified colleague revealed that people allegedly linked to the Lisbon painting offered them about $40,000. so that they lost a game of the penultimate day of the 2015/2016 season against that club.
Benfica won that match 0-2 and won the champion title in the next day.
Edgar Costa, 35, has been at the Maritime since 2014 and is currently the captain of the Funchal club, located in the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira.
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