What with it being a fairly major story, the rumbling quarrel between the Danish Football Association (DBU) and their first-team players has become a fairly prominent news story over the past week or so.
Indeed, it resulted in Denmark having to field a squad full of part-timers, amateur ringers and even futsal players for their friendly against Slovakia on Wednesday night – a weird old match they went on to lose 3-0.
However, it would appear that word of the dispute didn’t reach Pione Sisto, who paid the price for not affording a little more attention to his emails and text messages in the build-up to last night’s game.
Originally, the proper Denmark squad had been planning to meet up in Vienna, Austria where they would be accommodated for the match before making the 57-kilometre trip to the stadium in Trnava, Slovakia.
However, in the intervening days, those plans were cancelled as it emerged players and staff would be boycotting the fixture in protest of the aforementioned contractual wrangling.
Unfortunately, the amended schedule didn’t reach Sisto before he flew into Vienna airport on Tuesday, only to discover that none of his teammates were anywhere within about 1,000 kilometres of him.
Bemused, Sisto then flew to Copenhagen where the squad were meeting to discuss their predicament, then back to Spain, where he plays for Celta Vigo.
Retracing his steps, the 23-year-old winger told TV3 Sport:
I have received many messages on my phone in recent days, but have not read them all.
One of them may be from the Player Association. I have to check it out, even though it doesn’t matter know.
The Danish players’ association have since confirmed that all players in the national team squad were informed of the situation in good time and that Sisto must have either “overlooked or forgotten” to read the message.
Yeesh. It’s like trying to herd kitten uphill.