The Reds’ longest-serving player has been shown the door…
Adelaide United have announced the departure of defender Cassio following a fallout with manager Josep Gombau.
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The Reds released a statement saying the club had agreed to mutually terminate the contract of the Brazilian.
“The Adelaide United Football Club has today agreed to a mutual termination of the playing contract of Cassio de Abreu Oliveira, effective immediately,” the statement read.
“The Adelaide United Football Club would like to express its appreciation of the great service Cassio gave to the Reds during his time and wish him all the best in his future endeavours.”
Cassio is Adelaide’s longest serving player and has featured in 158 games for the club, but had fallen out of favour with Gombau.
Gombau labelled Cassio as “direspectful” after claiming he failed to support his teammates during the Reds’ 1-0 FFA Cup final win over Perth two weeks ago.
“He don’t come before pre-game (FFA Cup final) to support the players to say ‘good luck’,” Gombau said at the time.
“He don’t come after the game to celebrate with the players. For me this is disrespectful.
“I can understand that he don’t like me or he thinks that I am not a good coach or he thinks that the club … but his teammates?
“For a player that is playing with them every day he don’t shake hands and say ‘come on, we can win’ or ‘congratulations’ because we won.
“Are we happy for this? Come on.”
The 35-year-old has been linked with a move to the Newcastle Jets, but has not played a competitive game since November 2013 after sustaining a major hamstring injury.