Sporting CP have suspended 19 first team players ahead of their game tonight with Pacos Ferreira.

The Portuguese club were criticised by their own president, Bruno de Carvalho, following their 2-0 loss at Atletico Madrid in the Europa League on Thursday.

But Sporting players released a joint statement after the very public criticism hitting back at the comments.

The stars' statement read: "On behalf of the squad, through this joint statement we express our disgust with our president's public statements after yesterday's game for which we did not achieve the result we desired.

"The lack of support at this moment from the one who is supposed to be our leader, pointing the finger to publicly blame an athlete's performance when a group is ruled by its combined effort."

In retaliation, Carvalho promptly suspended them all for the game and manager Jorge Jesus will be forced to field a heavily weakened side.