Boca tear up Osvaldo's contract over poor discipline
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Italy striker Dani Osvaldo had his Boca Juniors contract terminated on Monday for disciplinary reasons, ending a short second spell with his favourite team, local media reported.
Boca and Osvaldo agreed to end the former AS Roma, Inter Milan, Juventus, Southampton and Porto striker’s deal after a fruitless stay, the state news agency Telam said.
The club was not available to comment.
Osvaldo, who has had several run-ins with the football authorities, including the English FA when he played for Saints in 2013/14, had already been kicked out of the Boca first team squad by coach Guillermo Barros Schelotto last Thursday.
The 30-year-old was caught smoking in the changing rooms at the Centenario in Montevideo after Thursday’s 1-1 draw at Uruguayan champions Nacional in the first leg of their Copa Libertadores quarter-final.
"It’s a subject I don’t need to talk about because it ended on Thursday," Barros Schelotto, who considered Osvaldo’s behaviour a lack of respect towards him and the team, told reporters on Sunday.
Argentine-born Osvaldo, who returned to Boca four months ago, had played the last five minutes, having just come back from a long foot-injury layoff, and went straight to the changing rooms without shaking hands with team mates or opponents and saluting the travelling fans.
Boca, captained by former Juventus striker Carlos Tevez, are aiming to win a record-equalling seventh Copa Libertadores, South America’s elite club competition.
(Writing by Rex Gowar; editing by Ken Ferris)