Villas-Boas challenges Varandas, blasts refs: “Sporting’s luck” | OneFootball

FC Porto president André Villas-Boas has written the editorial for the August issue of Dragões magazine, in which he addresses refereeing and points to Sporting as an example.

The August 2026 issue of Dragões magazine is now available. In the opening text, FC Porto president André Villas-Boas criticises refereeing and draws a comparison with Sporting, while also directing a challenge at Frederico Varandas.

“In refereeing, however, there is one truly comforting piece of news: the much-proclaimed standardisation of criteria does, after all, exist! While FC Porto’s matches have become genuine essays on blindness, with crystal-clear penalties vanishing until VAR has the seriousness to restore them to the game, in Sporting’s matches refereeing happenstance displays an almost moving randomness: key decisions always seem to go the same way and favour the same beneficiary. Between goals wrongly disallowed for their opponents and red cards that go unshown, the cycle repeats itself with a regularity that should fill with pride those who promised to standardise criteria. It is not easy to make so many coincidences always move in the same direction year after year, especially with VAR, but even there one can recognise the quality of the work carried out. So let us wait for the next appearance by Sporting’s president at some book fair, so that he may enlighten us on the subject. Perhaps he will take the opportunity to present the second volume of his work on sporting truth, this time with the suggestive title: ‘The Possible Standardisation and the Miracle of Permanent Coincidence’,” wrote André Villas-Boas.

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