Liverpool to honour Diogo Jota as Portugal PM joins family at footballer’s hometown wake
Public funeral to take place in Gondomar on Saturday, as club says star will be ‘honoured with the respect and affection he so richly deserves’
Portugal's Prime Minister Luis Montenegro joined members of Diogo Jota’s family for a private wake on Friday in the Liverpool footballer’s hometown in northern Portugal following his death alongside his brother Andre Silva in a car crash in Spain.
Jota’s long-time agent, Jorge Mendes, was also seen joining the family, including wife Rute Cardoso, who had married the footballer just weeks earlier. Montenegro spent almost half an hour with the family before leaving without making a statement.
Jota’s club remain focused on responding to the tragedy and said the forward would be “honoured with the respect and affection he so richly deserves”.
Liverpool’s past and present sporting directors, Michael Edwards and Richard Hughes, said in a joint statement that tributes would be “meaningful and inclusive of supporters”.
A convoy of hearses carrying the bodies left for Gondomar near Porto on Thursday evening from the morgue of Puebla de Sanabria, near where the Lamborghini in which the brothers were travelling had veered off the road and burst into flames after midnight on Thursday. Police said they suspected a tyre had burst.
A public wake is expected to take place at a chapel in Gondomar from Friday and a funeral on Saturday at a church nearby at 10am, the office of Gondomar’s mayor said.