FC Porto on the Arouca match: “A political move to take away a rest day” | OneFootball

"A sad episode that shames Portuguese football." This is how FC Porto reacts to the postponement of the match with Arouca, related to the seventh round of the League, rescheduled for September 29th - a day after the initially scheduled date - which will force the team of Francesco Farioli to play three matches in seven days, a sequence that will end with the classic against Benfica, on October 5th.

In a harsh note, the Dragons recall that the Arouca Harvest Fair, whose impact motivated the new schedule, "takes place annually in that municipality in September", and regret that "neither the Portugal League, FC Arouca, CM Arouca or the prevention and security authorities were able to foresee in time - before the draw of the Portugal League held on July 4th - the impossibility of FC Arouca hosting games on the weekend" of the festivities.

With the schedule tightening due to participation in the Europa League, FC Porto proposed to postpone the clash to October 30th, but Arouca refused the suggestion and, according to the Dragons statement, scheduled the game "unilaterally" for September 29th, a date that the League ended up formalizing.

FC Porto also finds it strange that "To ensure at all costs the scheduling of the match on this date, the Portugal League indicated 8:00 PM as the start time of the match - a time that is not provided for in the regulations", and directs criticism at the president of the body responsible for professional competitions.

"On September 10th, the president of the Portugal League, Reinaldo Teixeira, pompously announced the Meta 2028 project, which aims to present "a set of measures that promote the rise to the sixth place in the UEFA ranking". Seven days later, Reinaldo Teixeira and the respective Executive Board made the political decision to take away a day of rest from FC Porto before a European game", note the Porto officials, who add: "Perhaps the concerns expressed by FC Porto in the League's electoral period help to understand this position".

The rescheduling of the Arouca-FC Porto, initially pointed for September 28th, will make the Dragons play three matches in seven days: Arouca (September 29th), Red Star (October 2nd) and Benfica (October 5th).

For FC Porto, "The lack of planning in defining the sports calendar and the inability of the Portugal League to find a solution for this episode are demonstrative of an unacceptable unpreparedness with prejudice to professional clubs and to Portugal's coefficient in the UEFA ranking, in a decisive period for the future of Portuguese football and in which the much coveted overtaking of the Netherlands begins to seem less likely than the loss of a place to Belgium", concludes the club.

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