Moutinho penned a five-year contract with Porto yesterday in a deal that will have stunned his legion of fans, given that the long-serving midfielder has been at Sporting since the age of 13.

And Bettencourt has slammed the 23-year-old for forcing their hand.

"Joao Moutinho's behaviour lately has been deplorable," he said. "If I had not experienced the situation, I would not believe it was possible to descend so low.

"At the start of a new period, we had an orchard with a rotten apple, which would contaminate the group. And we could not continue with a rotten apple."

Porto have shelled out 11million euros for Moutinho, with Sporting also receiving 25% of any future transfer over that sum.

The deal also sees Nuno Andre Coelho move the other way but Porto will receive half of any fee if the defender, who has penned a four-year deal, moves on.

Sporting have rejected several big-money bids for their talisman in the past but Bettencourt claims they had little choice this time around.

He continued: "The only offer we received was that of FC Porto. We tried to get him to wait longer, so that there might be some offers from abroad, but Joao lost his temper and forced an exit to FC Porto, telling us that he had given his word to FC Porto. "