Social media football trolling got filthy when broadcaster Match TV took an x-rated pop at FC Porto, advertising their UEFA Champions League loss to Krasnodar as “adult content” with a doctored PornHub banner in a TV rights row.
The channel had failed to come to an agreement with the Primeira Liga team for rights to show the the 3rd qualifying round 2nd leg on Tuesday at Estádio do Dragão in Russia, meaning they could not show Krasnodar pummeling Porto into submission with a 3-2 win to advance to the next round on away goals.
Nevertheless the broadcaster had the last laugh, posting the logo of well-known x-rated website PornHub, doctored to read ‘PortoHub’.
The accompanying message read in Russian: “Sorry, but we don’t have a license to show adult content. Krasnodar destroyed Porto in the first half at the Dragão and held out in the second.”
The tweet even included a handy Portuguese translation, so there would be no chance for the message to be misconstrued and to really rub it in.
Despite riding on top of a 1-0 win in Russia, Porto went down 3-0 early in the 1st half in Portugal. A tag team from Tonny Vilhena and Magomed ‘Shapi’ Suleymanov did the job; the first opened up the scoring by slotting home on just three minutes, before the second pumped in a brace with just over half an hour played.
Although Porto mounted a second-half comeback with two goals of their own, Krasnodar held on for the win to give the Portuguese a good licking and make sure the South Russian side came through and advance to the group stage 3-3 on aggregate by virtue of away goals.
Cue an outpouring of social media gloating aimed at the 2004 Champions League winners.
Explaining what lead to the fallout, Match TV creative director Gavriil Gordeyev said lawyers were still in talks with Porto to provide a guarantee up until 10 minutes before kick-off, and that Porto should receive sanctions in response.
“For reaching the Champions League group stage Porto should have received €15.25 million, now for the Europa League they will get €2.92 million. Something hasn't gone right for them. We are upset we didn’t receive a broadcast, even though we agreed," he said, TASS reported.
It’s not the first time football action has been linked to the smutty site. After Germany beat Brazil 7-1 in the 2014 World Cup semi-final, PornHub implored users to stop uploading highlights of the match under mucky titles such as ‘Young Brazilians get f*cked by entire German soccer team' and other vulgar variations.