Italian winger Mirko Antonucci has been canned by his loan club Vitoria Setubal after the 21-year-old infuriated bosses at the Portuguese club with social media antics alongside his influencer girlfriend Ginevra Lambruschi.
Antonucci, who joined up with the Primeira Liga club in January, has been sent back to the Italian capital before the conclusion of the domestic season after the club’s hierarchy grew weary of the player’s presence on social media, according to reports.
The winger commands a sizeable following on various social media platforms where he posts racy pictures of himself and Lambruschi, but it was a video posted to video streaming site Tik Tok which appears to have been the final straw.
Antonucci is understood to have uploaded a video clip of him singing and dancing just hours after his team’s defeat against Boavista, a move which drew a surge of criticism from Vitoria Setubal supporters as well as the club’s hierarchy.
“Mirko Antonucci is no longer a player at Vitoria,” Vitoria boss Julio Velazquez said this week, opting to not detail the reasoning.
“It was communicated to his parent club, Roma, that the loan ends now and that we no longer count on the player, above all out of respect for the fans and the history of the club and for all those who work on a daily basis to represent this team with the greatest responsibility and dignity.
“For what this badge represents, for the history of the club and out of respect for the fans, a Vitoria player must be one 24 hours a day.
“The situation is very simple, the club, the management, technical team and staff understood that the behaviour of a player who was on loan was not what we wanted of a Vitoria player, nor what the fans deserve, on and off the pitch.”
Antonucci boasts more than 500,000 followers on his Instagram page which shows a series of steamy pictures alongside 22-year-old fashion influencer Lambruschi, whom Antonucci has reportedly been dating for six months.
