FC Porto threaten court action to postpone trip to Arouca | OneFootball

The national football scene is in turmoil after Liga Portugal decided to move the seventh-round match between Arouca and FC Porto from Sunday to Monday, due to the Harvest Festival scheduled for the upcoming weekend in the town of Arouca.

The City Council and local authorities anticipate the presence of thousands of people at the event, as is usually the case, and consider that there are no safety conditions to hold the match simultaneously, thus advising against maintaining the original date.

According to the newspaper O Jogo, the core of the controversy lies in the fact that this incompatibility was not communicated to the entity presided over by Reinaldo Teixeira before the draw for the 2025/26 season, held at the beginning of July, a circumstance that could have led to FC Porto playing away in this round.

It is a “mess” that has generated strong indignation in the management led by André Villas-Boas, which, according to the same publication, is seriously considering filing a precautionary measure in court to request the postponement of the match to a later date.

This factor is also one of the reasons why tickets have not yet been put on sale, despite the Arouca–FC Porto match being scheduled for 8:00 PM (Portugal Mainland time) next Monday at the Municipal Stadium of Arouca.

The blues and whites mainly contest the fact that the decision was made unilaterally by Liga Portugal and that Arouca did not show willingness to accept a postponement of the match, for example to October 30.

Furthermore, playing the game on Monday places FC Porto in a demanding cycle of three matches in just seven days: Arouca (September 29, at the Municipal Stadium of Arouca), Red Star (October 2, at the Estádio do Dragão), and Benfica (October 5, also at the Estádio do Dragão), right before the break for international commitments.

This context strengthens the arguments of the dragons' legal department, which last week communicated that clause number 1 of Article 46 of the Competition Regulations was not being observed with the current schedule.

“The scheduling, within 30 hours following the initially established date, does not apply in situations where one of the clubs involved has to play an official UEFA competition match the following week, in which case the game will be held, or completed, on a date to be established, by agreement between the clubs or, in the absence of agreement, Liga Portugal will decide the date and time of the game,” they stated.

It is certain that, before hosting Arouca, the team led by Italian coach Francesco Farioli has a scheduled match with Salzburg in the opening round of the Europa League group stage, at 8:00 PM next Thursday, at the Red Bull Arena in Austria.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.