Villas-Boas takes on Varandas over refs: “Sporting get touching luck” | OneFootball

FC Porto president André Villas-Boas signs the editorial in the August edition of Dragões Magazine, in which he addresses refereeing and points to Sporting as an example.

The August 2026 edition of Dragões Magazine is now available. In the opening text, FC Porto president André Villas-Boas criticizes refereeing and draws a comparison with Sporting, while also issuing a challenge to Frederico Varandas.

“In refereeing, however, there is one truly comforting piece of news: the much-proclaimed standardization of criteria does, after all, exist! While FC Porto’s matches have become genuine essays on blindness, with crystal-clear penalties evaporating until VAR has the seriousness to restore them to the game, in Sporting’s matches refereeing chance reveals an almost moving randomness: the 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 standardize criteria. It is not easy to make so many coincidences keep moving in the same direction year after year, especially with VAR, but even there one can recognize the quality of the work carried out. Let us therefore await the next appearance of 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 Standardization 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.