Sporting president Bruno de Carvalho claims the Portuguese outfit were under pressure from outside influences to sell Marcos Rojo to Manchester United in the summer. De Carvalho says third-party owners attended meetings, leading Sporting to think they were United officials.
"We did not want Rojo to leave. He was an important player for us," he told the BBC World Football Show.
De Carvalho added: "The pressure was so big, they [the third-party owners] started to speak to the clubs and come here to the meetings.
"The directors thought they were people from the clubs because they were speaking in English although they were Portuguese. They believed it was a person from a club but it was a person from the funds."
United told BBC Sport that it was an issue for Sporting's president and the third-party group, and that the Premier League club had no comment.
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