Portuguese Euro 2016 goal hero reveals father is in prison for Yarmouth murder

Filomeno Antonio Lopes.

But his beaming smile masked the pain that has haunted him for more 14 years.

For Eder has revealed that his father is in prison for murdering his wife – Eder's stepmother – in Yarmouth in 2002.

The forward said in an interview with Portuguese TV that his father was nearing the end of a 16-year sentence for the killing.

Eder, whose full name is Ederzito Antonio Macedo Lopes, was 12 when his father was convicted but after he started earning money he said he had visited him in prison every time he came to England.

Filomeno Antonio Lopes was convicted in October 2003 of killing Domingas Olivais, 30, and told he must serve at least 16 years behind bars as he was handed a life sentence.

A jury at Norwich Crown Court heard Lopes collected his partner from work in his car in April 2002, struck her with a steering wheel lock, strangled her and then dumped her body in the River Bure near Great Yarmouth.

Mr Justice Butterfield, setting Lopes' tariff at London's Royal Courts of Justice, said: 'This was a brutal killing of an innocent woman.'

Lopes was wanted by police in Portugal in connection with three armed robberies against elderly women.

Reports at the time said Lopes had invented his past to get into Britain with his victim, claiming to be fleeing civil war in his West African Guinea Bissau homeland when he was really the subject of an extradition order over the armed robberies.

Lopes, 37 when he was convicted, and Ms Olivais lived at a hotel in Yarmouth while waiting for their asylum application to be processed after arriving in the UK in the 90s.

The jury heard Lopes had strangled her thinking she had had an affair then dumped her body in the river.

A family on a Broads cruiser spotted her body on the muddy banks of the River Bure on April 28, 2002.

Ms Olivais was studying hairdressing at Great Yarmouth College at the time of her murder and worked as a cleaner at the town's Asda supermarket.