Hello everyone,
i´m new to this forum and i must say i registered because i saw this thread and i thought some points should be cleared.
Since this IS a football forum, we have an obligation to have a better insight and a more informed opinion that the average person. In turn, football experts will help mold the opinion of others that rely on people that live football fully to make their own opinions.
Thank you for having this thread in a British football forum and also for letting me participate.
Some points that i think should be cleared:
There is an ongoing CRIMINAL investigation in Portugal for some time about sport corruption/match fixing. this investigation is not over yet. It is often called "apito dourado" (golden whistle) in the press and covers more than just FC Porto.
This criminal investigation was going for some time without definite results until a new general prosecutor was assigned to the case, Dra. Maria Jose Morgado that took all the different processes that were spread all over the courts in the country and put them all under her supervision.
This is all very fine and even makes sense but the investigation went again to near stopped speed without having anything to go on until something unexpected comes to light.
FC Porto President girlfriend (former escort woman) breaks up with him and starts telling newspapers how he met with referees and gave them prostitutes before games.
This was all over the news and was a major scandal. She then apparently decides to capitalize on the media interest and writes a book about her time with FC Porto President describing what she said were several attemps to buy results and bribe referees.
A little surprisingly, the new prosecutor decides that this book and what was written there was admissible as evidence and opened several investigations that were already closed due to lack of evidence.
when i say i little surprisingly, maybe i am exaggerating since she is married to one of the board members of SL Benfica. Not exactly beyond suspicion, hum? oh, did i mention that the cases that were being investigated by the regular services of the Police were delivered to a special police brigade from... guess... Lisbon... this even caused some uproar from the magistrates in Porto and led to the resignation of several people.
Now, all this is about a CRIMINAL investigation that is STILL going on. the cases are in court and haven´t been ruled yet.
Late last year when it became obvious that some teams this year were really not up to the job of becoming champions, a new process was opened, this time a process inside the Portuguese Football Federation, that in a matter of months was able to BASED on documents of the criminal investigation (that has not been ruled yet) come to a decision. Now, this decision was announced, if i´m not mistaken 2 days before the league ended when Porto was already champion 20 points ahead.
Much to the amusement of a lot of people here, the decision of taking 6 points from Porto was made because "there was evidence that Porto MIGHT have tried to 'bribe' referees but they could not prove it and the matches showed no evidence that Porto was benefited".
Let´s read this again... Porto MIGHT have tried, they could not prove it and EVEN if it did, there was no benefit from it. and still there is a punishment of 6 points based on an assumption of an assumption of a possibility... WOW...
By now, a lot of you might be thinking, "come one, with so much talk, there must have been SOMETHING funny going on"... yes, there was...
i don´t know how many of you actually have met the fact that in business (and football is business also), but not only in business, the sex tour is actually almost protocol.
I work in the computing business for almost 15 years and i can tell you that i had to go to strip clubs with a lot of HP, Samsung, LG, etc executives. When a representative of a manufacturer came to Portugal to visit us, a trip to a local night club was mandatory and there was an unwritten agreement that we paid all the expenses, no matter what. Depending on tastes, others would prefer going to a nice restaurant (i remember paying 600 euros for a 2 person seafood diner with champagne).
Bigger companies organize "business" trips where there are also pleasurable intervals. I went to brasil, two weeks, all expenses paid by samsung. My wife came with me, so there were no deviations for me, but another guy that worked with me, went on another trip (he was engaged to marry at the time) and decided to cancel the wedding when he came because he had had the craziest 2 weeks of his life.
Point is, these things happen, everybody does it and doesn´t mean that you´re trying to BUY a result.
In the business world, you´re just being polite.
We can agree with this or not, and of course public opinion (and media) can never agree publicly with this.
But it HAPPENS everywhere and in every business or anything that moves power or money. Just look at the politic sex scandals that happen every now and then.
What anyone in Porto will never publicly admit is that they were only doing what EVERYBODY does everywhere. it is not politically correct.
And since we were finishing the league with 20 points advance facing a 6 point penalty, the club chose not the appeal since it would not matter for us and move forward.
The president would appeal in his name to wash the club honor and name (he was suspended for two years).
We should remember that another First League team was banned to the second league due to a proven bribery. the penalty for match fixing is being de-promoted, like it happened in Italy.
Now for the UEFA decision...
when Porto decided not to appeal and leave the matter to rest there, Benfica that had just finished in 4th place (out of
Champions League), made a request directly to UEFA to evaluate whether FC Porto should be admitted this year or not.
UEFA requested information from the Portuguese Federation, and strangely, the whole process was not sent to UEFA headquarters. Basically, what UEFA received was something akin to this:
"FC Porto was suspected of match fixing, there was not enough evidence to ban them, however since they did not appeal, it would seem that they accept the charge"
this is strange to begin with, but the whole process has already been sent to UEFA for evalutation.
but this is also the world of Politics and UEFA is no exception...
Why ban Porto based on the rule that teams that are or were involved in match fixing cannot participate in european competitions?
First, there is NO proof that Porto fixed matches and not appealing is not the same as admitting guilt!
Second, the cases in question are from the 2003/2004 league and the UEFA rule is from 2007. how can you apply a law retroactivly??? if smoking if forbidden tomorrow, will i be convicted of every cigarrete i smoked until now??? no law can be apllied retroactivly exactly for this reason... it doesn´t make sense!
it doesn´t make sense legally, of course, because politically, UEFA just found the perfect candidate to show a heavy hand. Big enough for others to notice, but small enough not to disrupt competitions and specially not losing a lot of TV transmission rights in the process.
Third, if this rule IS being apllied to FC Porto NOW, 4 years AFTER the alleged events, then also at least the Italian teams that were punished (and here match fixing WAS proved) should also be banned this CL season. What stops UEFA from punishing NOW an italian team that fixed results 2 or 3 years ago, when FC Porto is being banned for things that supposedly happened 4 years ago?
Anyway, i just wanted to help clear some things because people hear "ban", "match fixing" etc and might jump to conclusions.
FC Porto is not perfect but we´re not cheaters either. We don´t need it.
