SL Braga taken on Marseille in a Europa League match at the Stade Velodrome this evening, but, at the moment at least, none of their players have any football boots because they were allegedly all stolen by someone from the Marseille’s stadium last night!
The Portuguese side trained last night at the Stade Velodrome before locking away their boots and other equipment inside their dressing room for tomorrow’s match in trunks, as normal, according to RMC.
However this morning, around 10:30 CET, an official for the Portuguese club went to the stadium to see, according to him, that the sports bag in which all the boots had been stored had been stolen. He quickly contacted his supervisor who contacted the Marseille staff, who brought the police in immediately to investigate.
Marseille said that a security guard had been placed in front of the dressing room and that the door to it had not at all been fracture.
Some Portuguese sources are claiming that Braga might not even be able to play tonight in these conditions.
In order to address the problem, Marseille offered to make available a private jet available to the Portuguese so that they could fly new boots out of Braga. They also asked for a list of all the shoe sizes of Braga’s players so that they could quickly apply for new boots from the football boot companies that they are most closely affiliated with.
Braga turned down both of these proposals. Marseille President Vincent Labrune lunched with a UEFA official today, who assured Labrune that the match was not in danger of having to be rescheduled.
