An engagement celebration ended with the arrest of three Brazilian football players and their wives, accusations of police brutality and racist behaviour.

On April 6, Lucio Wagner, who plays for reigning Bulgarian champion Levski, Felippe Machado and Marcos Antonio “Marquinhos” Malachias Junior, both playing for CSKA Sofia, got together with their wives in Machado’s apartment in the Geo Milev neighbourhood to celebrate Machado’s engagement. At about 10.30pm, police received a complaint from Machado’s neighbours about the noise coming from the apartment. The police officers’ visit quickly resulted in the arresting of the three partying Brazilians. Shortly after the arrest, the women were released, while the three players remained in custody for 15 hours.

According to CSKA’s media officer Ivan Takev, Marquinhos’ wife was outraged about the police officers’ behaviour and was thinking of filing a complaint.

“The police officers had acted brutally, but then again, the behaviour of the players was not very polite either,” Takev was quoted as saying by sportni.bg. “We will wait until we have the full picture to decide what to do with the players, but if indeed they partied until late, in breach of CSKA’s internal regulations, we will take measures.”

Stanimir Stoilov, head coach of Levski, said that there was nothing wrong with the three players gathering, because it had happened at about 10pm. “As foreigners, however, they should know that Bulgaria has laws and anyone who violates them will be sanctioned. For me the case is pretty straightforward,” Stoilov said, quoted by Levski’s website.

Hours after the arrest, speculations appeared in Bulgarian-language media that the three players were taking part in a sex orgy mixed with a lot of alcohol when police officers arrived. That was why the players acted in a very offensive way towards the policemen. According to sportni.bg, the three players felt that they were victims of racism because of their skin colour, despite the fact that Wagner has a Bulgarian passport and has even played several games for the country’s national team.

On April 7, Sofia District Court took things into its own hands and fined the three players 200 leva each. The court decided that the three Brazilians had violated public order by listening to music that was too loud, by making offensive gestures at police officers  and by calling them monkeys in front of witnesses. The court did not accept that the Brazilians had called policemen “bastards”, as was one of the accusations.

Talking on commercial Darik radio on April 8, Marquinhos said: “The story about the sex orgy with prostitutes is complete nonsense. We were there in the presence of our wives. I am amazed at how the police works in Bulgaria. We decided not to file a complaint for just one reason. We came to Bulgaria to play football and not something else. I don’t want any other problems and I know that if I file a complaint there will be problems. Yesterday our wives wanted us to leave Bulgaria, but now we are thinking otherwise, and after the court did not find us guilty, we decided to stay.”