A Croatian court said on Monday it had dropped perjury charges against Liverpool defender Dejan Lovren, who was accused of giving false testimony in a major football-related corruption trial.
Lovren, 29, was charged in September with committing perjury over his testimony at the 2017 trial of former Dinamo Zagreb boss Zdravko Mamic, who is accused of multi-million-euro graft.
The player had provided details about his 2010 transfer from Dinamo to French side Lyon.
But the Zagreb municipal court “on January 25 rejected the indictment … against Lovren,” a tribunal statement said without elaborating.
The ruling can be appealed, it added.
In December the court dropped similar charges against Real Madrid’s Croatian superstar Luka Modric.
Mamic, considered the kingpin of the Balkan state’s football scene, was sentenced in June to six-and-a-half years in prison over multi-million-euro corruption.
He fled the country and is hiding in neighbouring Bosnia.
Mamic was accused of embezzling cash through fictitious deals related to player transfers, notably those of Lovren and Croatia’s captain Modric to Tottenham.
Like Modric, who won the 2018 Golden Ball, Lovren was part of the Croatian national team that finished runners-up in the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
Croatia lost to France in the finals but the small nation was overjoyed by its historic run, which temporarily quieted anguish over corruption and other problems plaguing the sport.
Source: AFP
