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Mozambique: Portuguese athletics coach to be deported, athletes outraged
2:31 CAT | 21 Jul 2022
Photo: Lusa
Mozambique’s migration service announced this Thursday that Portuguese athletics coach Alberto Lário, who was detained in Maputo due to irregularities in his documents, will be deported to Portugal.
“The citizen will be repatriated to his country of origin because he does not meet the requirements to stay in national territory,” spokesperson Felizardo Jamaca told a press conference called to clarify the case in Maputo.
Alberto Lário, a figure who has been a reference for new generations of athletics in Mozambique, was arrested on Tuesday afternoon, allegedly because of irregularities in his documentation.
According to Felizardo Jamaca, Alberto Lário has been in an irregular situation since his Foreign Resident Identification Document (DIRE) expired in 2019.
READ: Verónica José: The Mozambican quietly becoming an elite athlete
Lário was born in Mozambique and left the country at a young age. He has had a nationality application “pending” for more than six years, but the Mozambican Migration Service considers that the coach should have raised the issue with the authorities to which he submitted the request.
“In order to acquire nationality, certain requirements must be observed and if he did not receive an answer to the request he should have approached the entities to find out what happened. But we have no evidence that he submitted a nationality request,” Jamaca said, adding that contact with Portuguese diplomatic entities in Mozambique regarding Lário’s deportation had already started.
Alberto Lário, who was born in Mozambique and has lived in the country for several years, achieved the milestone of coaching Verónica José, with the support of the Portuguese Association (AP) of Mozambique, to a place among the best female junior athletes in the world.
The world championship in Cali, Colombia, scheduled for August 1st to 6th, will be Verónica’s first major international 1,500 metres race. Verónica José beat the time of 4.29 minutes in Braga, Portugal, and has been improving her performance since then.
The detention of the coach, which resulted from a complaint made by the president of the Mozambican Athletics Federation, Kamal Badrú, has generated outrage among Mozambican athletes, who were today organising a march to the Mozambique Migration Service building, demanding the release of “Coach Lário”, as he is popularly known.
READ: Mozambique: Portuguese athletics coach detained
Source: Lusa
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