Brazilian defender Marcelo has denied reports claiming he was released by Lyon because he kept farting in the dressing room and laughing about it.
The extraordinary claim was made in French daily l’Equipe, who said Marcelo’s unwelcome fluctuance did not go down too well with sporting director Juninho, who decided to release him from the squad.
That suggestion has been dismissed by the 34-year-old, who wrote a rare post on social media to deny it was true.
Marcelo had already been dropped to the reserves following a particularly poor performance in a 3-0 defeat at Angers in August.
However, it is claimed Lyon were then further incensed by what they called “inappropriate behaviour” by the player, later claimed to be his jovial breaking of wind.
Juninho reportedly consulted with manager Peter Bosz and agreed to let the defender go, with Marcelo leaving in January to join Bordeaux.
Marcelo, though, took to Twitter to empathically deny the farting reports.
Having not tweeted anything since October he has since posted: “Thanks to l’Equipe, after a long time, I have to come back to Twitter to deny all the allegations. Journalism nowadays is a joke!”