Lazio have confessed they mixed up Sporting Braga with Sporting Lisbon on their official financial accounts listing payments for Pedro Neto.
The remarkable error was confirmed via email to English newspaper The Guardian by general secretary Armando Calveri.
“I would like to clarify that Lazio bought both the players (Pedro Neto & Bruno Jordao) from Sporting Club Braga and not from Sporting Club de Portugal [Sporting Lisbon],” wrote Calveri.
Lazio have confessed they mixed up Sporting Braga with Sporting Lisbon on their official financial accounts listing payments for Pedro Neto.
The remarkable error was confirmed via email to English newspaper The Guardian by general secretary Armando Calveri.
“I would like to clarify that Lazio bought both the players (Pedro Neto & Bruno Jordao) from Sporting Club Braga and not from Sporting Club de Portugal [Sporting Lisbon],” wrote Calveri.
“Unfortunately, it was a mistake made by our financial department that was deceived by the similar names of the clubs. As you well know, SC de Portugal never registered the players. We will adjust our balances by specifying the notes related to the two cases.”
It seems as if the error was purely a written one in the accounts and the money did not in fact go to Sporting Lisbon.
The newspaper also enquired about a discrepancy between the figures listed for the transfer by Braga and Lazio, for the player who has since moved to Wolverhampton Wanderers.
“As you can understand, all the financial information related to the player’s transfer are confidential and it makes things more mysterious,” was the response.
“But in this case the imagination exceed[s] reality. Your ‘investigation’ is misled by the different fiscal approach adopted by the two clubs, probably. All the amounts related to the transfer are declared into Fifa TMS [transfer matching system] that protects transparency in the financial transactions between clubs.”