Villas-Boas claims club caused car accidents

Shanghai SIPG coach Andre Villas-Boas has accused rivals Guangzhou Evergrande of engineering car accidents as the team travelled to the second leg of Tuesday's AFC Champions League quarter-final.

Head coach Andre Villas-Boas of Shanghai SIPG reacts during the match against Guangzhou Source: Visual China Group

Villas-Boas slammed the Asian Football Confederation, who have since begun disciplinary proceedings, after his team pipped Guangzhou 5-4 on penalties, having thrown away a 4-0 first leg lead.

"Two cars separately had three accidents in front of us. This club can cause accidents," Villas-Boas said.

"In the last game, Fu Huan had a very clean slide tackle which led to his suspension in this match.

"Zhang Linpeng should be suspended from this game because he used his elbow in the first game and he's not suspended because the committee of ethics and discipline at AFC did not judge an elbow as violent conduct."

"This is the greatest achievement for SIPG ever because it's against a club that is dominating the AFC." 

"This club can do everything, they can cause accidents in front of us, they have players who can elbow Elkeson and not be suspended and yet we won. The referee gave our goalkeeper a yellow card during the penalties and this is a disgrace."

Meanwhile, the AFC released a statement which read: "As a result of comments ... the AFC has opened disciplinary proceedings based on Article 50.1 of the AFC Disciplinary and Ethics Code (Bringing the game into disrepute)".

"The case will be dealt with by the AFC Disciplinary and Ethics Committee on a date to be confirmed."

Villas-Boas has already fallen foul of the authorities this season having been handed a two-game ban in the Chinese Super League for questioning an eight-game suspension handed to SIPG's Oscar.

SIPG will meet Japan's Urawa Red Diamonds in the semi-finals, with the first leg to be played on September 27 and the return three weeks later.