Portuguese athletics coach Alberto Lário left Maputo for Lisbon on Friday, almost three weeks after he was detained by authorities for irregularities in his documentation, according to a source from Mozambique's Migration Service.

"His flight left around 06:00," said Felizardo Jamaca, spokesman for the Mozambique Migration Service in Maputo City.

The coach was arrested on July 19 because there were irregularities in his documentation.

According to the authorities, Alberto Lario had been in an irregular situation since 2019, when the validity of his Foreign Resident Identification Document (DIRE) expired.

A few days after his arrest, Alberto Lário was admitted to Maputo Military Hospital after testing positive for covid-19.

His return to Portugal was hostage to his health condition and after he underwent a new test for covid-19, which was negative, steps were taken to conclude the process for his repatriation.

Alberto Lário paid a fine of about one million meticais, making way for him to return to Mozambique, if he so wished, after regularizing his situation with the Mozambican diplomatic entities in Portugal.

Alberto Lário, who was born in Mozambique and left the country at a very young age, has had an application for nationality "pending" for over six years, but the Mozambique Migration Service believes that the technician should have raised the issue with the authorities to which he submitted the application, adding that there is no proof of this request.

The coach's detention generated a wave of indignation among Mozambican athletes, who decided to organize, at the time, a march to the Mozambican Migration Service building, demanding the release of "coach Lário", as he is popularly known in Mozambique.