The World Cup is rarely short of strange stories and as Serbia prepared for their all or nothing tie against Switzerland on Friday, their star forward felt he had to deny the story publicly.
As per Sport, Luke Wilson published a Twitter thread in which he explained that part of the reason Dusan Vlahovic was not starting for Serbia was due to discontent in the squad.
The motive being, Vlahovic had supposedly had an affair with Real Mallorca and Serbian back-up ‘keeper Predrag Rajkovic’s partner. The incident was said to have occurred during the World Cup as Serbia were locked down in their camp.
Vlahovic has only come of the bench for 24 minutes. His coach Dragan Stojkovic explained that the Juventus forward was not fully fit. The Serbian forward decided to make a publicly statement on the matter himself, which was then published by the national team Twitter account.
“It’s complete nonsense made up by people who have nothing better to do,” said the Serie A star.
“I am ready to defend my name, legally, if necessary. What is being said is a lie and the atmosphere in the team is very good. Our goal now is the match against Switzerland and it is very sad that they are talking about something else.”
While it is certainly unusual that he felt the need to deny it publicly, the fact Wilson later deleted the Tweets would suggest that either the information was unfounded, he feared legal action, or both.
Serbia know they must beat Switzerland in order to progress on Friday, having taken one point from their opening two games. There will be no love lost between the two teams, where Xherdan Shaqiri and Granit Xhaka both have Albanian-Kosovan heritage, and tensions with Serbia in the region are high.
More must-reads: