Some say Sporting got lucky in 6 of 11 league games | OneFootball

One of the names considered for the Benfica presidential race, Mauro Xavier, complained about refereeing in Portugal and said that Sporting was 'helped' in more than half of the matches they played in this edition of the Liga Portugal Betclic. The Benfica member gave an interview to Notícias ao Minuto, where he addressed the issue.

"The incidents are not limited to what happened at the Estádio do Dragão with Fábio Veríssimo, to the play that preceded Sporting's winning goal against Santa Clara, or to the controversies of Benfica-Casa Pia. Unfortunately, there are many more. The league is already at the 11th round and Sporting has already directly benefited in six of those 11 matches," Mauro Xavier pointed out, without, however, specifying which matches those were.

Then, the Benfica member presented some solutions: "Even so, the Portuguese Football Federation received from the Government the responsibility to organize the competitive frameworks and kept control of refereeing. It is up to the clubs to ask the Government to intervene directly, and it is up to the Government to understand that refereeing needs a major overhaul, since, unfortunately, the leaders of the FPF and the League still haven't realized that this model is not contributing anything positive."

"I think it's time to adopt concrete measures. What we cannot do is allow recurring mistakes to continue, which have only harmed Benfica, so I understand the agitation that is happening. This is where the Government can step in to take measures with something I have already mentioned, which involves removing refereeing from the control of the FPF. There is no reason for the FPF to manage refereeing," Mauro Xavier explained next.

The Benfica supporter concluded as follows: "Refereeing must be totally impartial and independent from everything else. Then, there must be an updated ranking table for referees, just as there is for clubs, so that everyone knows the overall ranking of referees throughout the season."

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