Rui Santos says coup in refereeing has Benfica backing | OneFootball

Rui Santos wrote a column titled "The ‘Coup d’État’ in Refereeing Has Benfica’s ‘Backing’", in which he places the Eagles at the center of the current crisis in Portuguese refereeing, arguing that the situation in national football also reflects Benfica’s recent stance toward the sector.

“I have very few doubts that Duarte Gomes positioned himself to take Luciano Gonçalves’s place and that all this ‘serves’ Benfica, following the complaints of president Rui Costa, the losses recorded since the start of last season and which were amplified by a ‘zero tolerance’ narrative from Benfica regarding refereeing, with a view to next season,” it can be read in the newspaper 'Sol'.

The columnist then frames the broader context of the refereeing crisis as a moment of major institutional instability, linking it to the atmosphere of unrest in Portuguese football: “There is barely a month left before the Portuguese League begins and 28 days until the Super Cup (Porto-Torrense), the first match of the 2026-27 season, and things are already going off the rails: an attempted ‘coup d’état’ in refereeing is underway, which ultimately aims to reach FPF president Pedro Proença, who found himself holding the ‘hot potato’ during the Football World Cup, in a process with the makings of a scandal.”

Rui Santos then addresses the internal workings of the refereeing structure and the suspicions raised in the process, explaining the scale of the accusations on the table: “It was immediately left hanging in the air that Luciano Gonçalves ‘negotiated’ appointments with club sports agents and that this was the basis of an advantage/disadvantage benefiting some at the expense of others. A very serious accusation, which triggered various reactions, namely that of the president of the FPF Refereeing Council himself, who issued a statement saying that the allegations directed at him had — obviously, in his view — no basis whatsoever.”

What is more, he says the current atmosphere is the result of an accumulation of tensions between clubs, directors, and federal bodies, in a scenario where refereeing is at the center of the dispute: “The clubs are ALL responsible for today’s refereeing context, because ALL of them believed that, through Proença, due to their past relationships, they would secure his approval to interfere in the refereeing sector in their favor. Now that, at the very least, is called intellectual corruption, and whoever believed in the practical effects of these alleged influences did not know how to do basic addition (or subtraction).”

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