TAD upholds €15,000 fine after ‘television case’ | OneFootball

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAD) upheld the fine imposed on FC Porto by the Disciplinary Board (CD) of the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF), following a statement released in November 2025 in connection with the “television case” involving the clash between the Dragons and SC Braga.

At the time, the blue-and-white club’s response to the controversy sparked by Fábio Veríssimo’s complaint of pressure resulted in a €15,000 fine from the CD, prompting FC Porto to appeal to the TAD.

According to the ruling now made public by the TAD, the arbitral panel “decided, by majority, to dismiss the Claimant’s request [FC Porto], acquit the Respondent [FPF], and, consequently, uphold the ruling issued by the Respondent within the legal order.”

At the heart of the decision was a passage from FC Porto’s statement in which the Dragons spoke of “attempts to whitewash crucial incidents with a direct impact on results through the coordinated conduct of commentators with privileged ties within the decision-making bodies.”

“The Claimant does not mention the commentators’ privileged ties with officeholders in decision-making bodies in an attempt to ‘explain’ the commentators’ coordinated and repeated conduct. Instead, the Claimant suggests that the officeholders in decision-making bodies are aware of the coordinated conduct of commentators who whitewash crucial incidents — conduct that is repeated and therefore evident — and in some way benefit from it, since otherwise they would not, under normal circumstances, continue to maintain ‘privileged ties’ with them. In addition to being something that goes beyond ‘criticism in the public sphere — including criticism by other sports stakeholders — conveyed through the various forms of expression’ and is therefore unlawful, it is an action that cannot but be considered culpable, given that the dissected meaning of the expression and the impact it will have on the general public are known to the Claimant (and, if they are not, they should be),” the ruling states.

It should be recalled that, still in the “television case,” FC Porto had already been punished with a €12,750 fine for repeatedly showing controversial incidents in the refereeing team’s dressing room, led by Fábio Veríssimo. At that time, the Dragons also appealed to the TAD, which ultimately upheld the sanction imposed by the FPF’s CD.

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