AVB backs Classico referee against Benfica and Sporting: “Brown cloak” | OneFootball

André Villas-Boas used the editorial in the latest issue of Dragões magazine to respond to the criticism aimed at FC Porto before the Clássico in the seventh round of the Primeira Liga against Benfica, which ended in a 3-1 Porto victory. The president of the blue-and-whites accused their rivals of trying to influence the match, criticized the media space given to those positions, and defended Miguel Nogueira’s performance. About the referee, he assured: “he was just a referee, impartial and serious.”

In a text with a harsh tone and loaded with irony, André Villas-Boas presented the victory as FC Porto’s response to the atmosphere surrounding the match beforehand. That message runs through the entire editorial: faced with what he saw as weeks of belittling and suspicion, the club responded on the pitch.

When addressing the way Benfica publicly prepared for the Clássico, the Porto president did not soften his words. Villas-Boas contrasted the result with the rhetoric that, in his view, sought to belittle FC Porto, the fans, and the working group.

“We beat our opponent and responded to the arrogance of those who spent weeks trying to diminish FC Porto, its fans and its working group. There were insults, manufactured suspicions and attempts to influence things, served up in monologues in which acute club bias replaced any contradiction,” he began by writing.

The attack also extended to commentators linked to the two rivals from Segunda Circular, grouped by Villas-Boas under the expression “Brown Cloak.” In the executive’s view, club differences gave way to a common alignment against the dragons.

“The commentators of the ‘Brown Cloak,’ that mix of green and red that so well reflects the alignment of Segunda Circular, seem to have already founded a new club,” he joked. “We do not yet know their stadium, but the headquarters operate in various studios and the communication policy is perfectly coordinated: the need to attack and belittle everything related to FC Porto.”

Villas-Boas then developed the same idea further, describing media convergence so intense that, he wrote, it could even confuse less attentive viewers.

“The blood pact is such that even the least attentive viewer may end up confused about each person’s club colors,” he continued. “Our team did not need to answer them through the microphone. It answered on the pitch, with football, personality and a victory that no footnote argument can undo, forcing them to lick each other’s wounds, mourning the shared pain of an FC Porto victory.”

The result therefore appears as the core of the president’s reply: rather than prolonging the discussion in front of microphones, Villas-Boas pointed to the team’s performance. The criticism of their rivals merges with broader criticism of television punditry and the atmosphere created around the Clássico.

Refereeing was another of the editorial’s main themes. The FC Porto president came out in defense of “Miguel Nogueira’s excellent refereeing” and attacked interpretations he considered biased, highlighting calls for the sending-off of a player who was no longer on the pitch.

“Neither specialists nor former referees nor UEFA guidelines will prevail over the opinions of biased newsrooms and their directors and executive editors, as well as the paraphernalia of Benfica fans, former employees, former candidates, former players and former collaborators who invade opinion spaces, and who reached their peak of fanaticism in the commentator who said Gabri Veiga should have been sent off and FC Porto reduced to ten men at a moment when he himself was no longer even on the field.”

The position is unequivocal: Villas-Boas rejected the idea that media analysis should override his assessment of the referee’s work. From there, he broadened the criticism to the television broadcast of matches itself.

The executive also challenged the suspicions aimed at SportTV and pointed to an alleged conflict of interest involving the television rights to Benfica’s home matches. At the center of the criticism is control over the images made available to the public.

“The absurd takes on new contours when the suspicion also extends to SportTV, in a league in which the same club holds the rights to the television broadcasts of its home matches, in a structural and blatant conflict of interest that, in other latitudes, would be considered incompatible with any claim to impartiality. That the holder of those rights can decide, without external scrutiny, which images reach the public and which remain in the editing room is a situation that would need no comment if it were not so convenient for those who benefit from it,” he fired back. “Have some decency.”

Near the end, Villas-Boas condensed his defense of Miguel Nogueira into a direct formulation, bringing back the reference to “priests” and closing the argument with a note of sarcasm about the television coverage that would have been expected had Benfica won.

“Put simply: the country was going to come to a standstill because Benfica were going to win and nobody was going to work. For that to happen, Miguel Nogueira would have had to be a ‘priest,’ but he was not: he was just a referee, impartial and serious, in yet another Portuguese football Clássico,” he added. “But let’s look on the bright side: with FC Porto’s win, hours of live coverage and footage of the Benfica bus were lost, and that saved thousands of euros in fuel, which is very expensive.”

Between defending the referee and attacking the media coverage, the editorial turns the Clássico into a dispute that goes beyond the pitch. Villas-Boas makes the victory the main response and uses irony to round off a statement that leaves no doubt about the target of the criticism.

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