Director of Sporting, Nuno Saraiva, has slammed West Ham co-chairman, David Sullivan, insisting that his recent claims about the Hammers turning down the chance to sign William Carvalho are false as the Portuguese club didn’t receive any offers for the 25-year-old.

West Ham manager, Slaven Bilic, has come under fire after Sullivan claimed that he’d rejected the chance to sign Carvalho on the final day of the season. However, Saraiva tells a very different story, even branding Sullivan a liar.

“David Sullivan is lying,” Nuno Saraiva wrote on his Facebook page. “Sporting Clube de Portugal, as its chairman has already said, has received no offer for the player William Carvalho.

“The football business is a not an adult film set on which all obscenities are allowed. This intellectual pornography is not worthy of a head of a football club.”

He continued, “David Sullivan has the duty of proving what he said. Sporting Clube de Portugal is challenging him to publish the proposals that he said were made, as well as the proof that Sporting CP received them.

“One thing is clear: Sporting CP, as we have said, does not cut the legs off its players. But we have nothing to do with the behaviour of business men or family members who live off the players and who go around offering them from club to club at bargain basement prices, without any mandate, as if they were cheap supermarket produce.

“It devalues players, it devalues the club, and it creates unfortunate situations like this one, which has forced Sporting Club to take drastic measures to defend itself from these characters who live off some players like parasites.”

Evidently, Arsenal didn’t make an approach either despite claims following Transfer Deadline Day. However, the Gunners have been linked with the defensive midfielder since 2013, so it’s hardly a huge surprise that the media claimed we’d made one last attempt to sign him.

Sullivan’s statement ‘revealing’ that Bilic turned down the chance to sign Carvalho, as well as Renato Sanches and Grzegorz Krychowiak, who went to Swansea and West Brom respectively, smacks of the club trying to get fans to turn on the manager. And now it’s emerged that he’s been lying.

david sullivan
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – MAY 10: West Ham United co-chairman David Sullivan is interviewed prior to the Barclays Premier League match between West Ham United and Manchester United at the Boleyn Ground on May 10, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Paul Gilham/Getty Images)

“Overall Slaven is happy with the business we have done during the summer transfer window,” Sullivan told West Ham’s official website after the window had shut.

“We received the manager’s wish-list before the window opened and we have managed to get the top four players on it.

“It is no secret that we made a club-record bid for Sporting Lisbon’s William Carvalho but unfortunately that offer was rejected a couple of weeks ago.

“Late last night [Thursday] Sporting Lisbon made contact to accept the original offer, but unfortunately it was just too late in the day, and we simply did not have enough time to put the player through a medical.

“We were not prepared, as a club, to buy a player for that amount of money without him having gone through adequate medical checks.

“Grzegorz Krychowiak and Renato Sanches were both offered to the manager before their switches elsewhere, but he told us that he is happy with the squad he has.

“As a board we are behind Slaven, and he believes he has the tools to turn around our form and rectify our disappointing start to the season.”

Bilic is in the firing line this season. The Hammers have failed to win a single point during their three Premier League fixtures so far and have already shipped 10 goals.

Depressingly, that’s only two more than Arsenal.