Keylor Navas denies plotting to deliberate lose games

There is an ongoing court case in Costa Rica involving Bryan Ruiz, Keylor Navas and Celso Borges against the former director Rafael Vargas and former president of the Costa Rican Football Federation Eduardo Li. Yesterday during the first day of trial, Li stated that the three players were considering losing three games to force the exit of former manager Jorge Luis Pinto in 2014.

“We had a meeting and they said they were not happy with Jorge Luis Pinto continuing to be the manager for the national team. So if necessary they would purposely lose three games so Pinto could be sacked,” said Eduardo Li on Monday during his court appearance.

Navas, Ruiz and Borges had allegedly discovered there was a clause in Pinto’s contract that if the Costa Rica men’s national team lost three games in a row, Federation bosses could terminate his contract. So the three players supposedly talked to Li about either the coach being sacked or the players ensuring three consecutive defeats in order to push Pinto out of the job after their participation in the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

Keylor Navas denies claims

“I am very surprised about this accusation. As a player you would never say such a thing and I never said that to Li. We are professional footballers and I have honor and prestige,” said Navas.

Pinto’s version

Jorge Luis Pinto is currently in his home country of Colombia, and he appeared in court this Tuesday via video conference to say his ntention was to continue as manager of Costa Rica after the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

“After our participation in the World Cup I took ten days to prepare my project for the next five years. So I sat down with Adrián Gutierrez, Rafael Vargas and Eduardo Li and when I was talking about my plan for the next five years they told me that the players will purposely lose two or three games if I continued at the job,” said Pinto.