Barcelona striker Luis Suarez has become embroiled in a bitter exchange with former agent and ex-Uruguay international Daniel Fonseca, who alleges the player "has psychological problems."
Suarez has said that Fonseca had kept $200,000 owed to the player when he moved from Uruguayan club Nacional de Montevideo to Eredivisie side Groningen back in 2006.
Fonseca does not accept this version of events and he has said Suarez owes him money and is a "liar" and a "coward" who needs psychological help.
The row began when Suarez was asked on Uruguay TV channel Monte Carlo on Wednesday evening whether stories that Fonseca had kept a share of the transfer fee were true, and responded by saying he had been disappointed at how his former representative had tricked him over money at the time of his first move to Europe as a 19-year-old.
"That was one of the disappointments I had with Daniel," Suarez said. "He also told me I was going to make €30,000 a month, and I made €10,000. He tried to compensate me when I went to Ajax [in 2007], but I've always had this sticking point. Because he was a footballer and knows the difficulties young players have and what they suffer to make money."
Uruguay radio station Las Voces del Futbol contacted Fonseca for a response, and the former Juventus, Roma, Napoli and River Plate striker strongly disagreed with Suarez's comments while citing the psychologist Suarez has been seeing since his infamous biting of Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini at the 2014 World Cup.
"[Suarez] is a liar, he is brazen and shameless," Fonseca said. "He is lying. He has psychological problems, he goes to a psychologist, but it's not working. I don't need him, I'm famous without him. I don't respect him as a person and cannot accept disrespect from a kid who needs to use his fingers to add up, as he does not know what is four plus four."
Fonseca added: "The 20 percent which Suarez claims was supposed to be paid to him by Nacional, not me. He owes me $1.4m. I earned him $7m in five years, he should applaud me. He should have the courage to send me a lawyer so I can tell him how he screwed me."
He also said the real reason the pair fell is regarding something that happened with Uruguay's youth team, although he did not reveal any details.
"This is happening because one day three teammates from the Uruguay youth team called me to say something uncomfortable was happening with Luis," he said. "I had to tell him something hard, but until the day I die I will not repeat it.
"It was an uncomfortable truth. He did not accept it. I prefer people who tell the truth, who understand each other in few words. The coward [Suarez] should tell the truth now, not try and stain my name by saying I owe him $200.000. If he has courage, he will say the uncomfortable thing I had to say to him. That is the true reason this character has been hiding for six years."
During his interview, Suarez did say he appreciated what Fonseca had done for him as a teenager, when he had wanted to see his then girlfriend, now wife, whose family had emigrated to Barcelona.
"I appreciate Fonseca, as at the time, when I was 15, the first trip I made to Spain, Fonseca paid for me," he said.