FC Porto set to maintain strong stance 💪 | OneFootball

FC Porto has chosen to break its silence regarding refereeing and will not back down. The Dragons will raise their level of demand and, after having acted in the first few months of the season without public positions, they reserve, from the classic onwards, the right to denounce what they consider to be wrong in the institutions of Portuguese football, especially in the Refereeing Council.

The first sign appeared after the FC Porto B–Torreense match, with severe criticism of referee Vítor Ferreira, but it was the intervention of André Villas-Boas at the entrance of the Portugal Football Globes – an award ceremony promoted by the FPF – that had the greatest impact.

The Dragons closely followed the movements since the final of the Portuguese Cup and, even recognizing the existence of a collision course between the main rivals, Benfica and Sporting, they feared collateral effects that would harm them. The blue and white SAD, for example, was surprised by a statement from the eagles before the Super Cup, in which referee Fábio Veríssimo was vehemently criticized, without this having prompted a reaction from the FPF.

According to our newspaper, FC Porto believes that the inertia of the FPF and the League has fueled the current scenario in which successive statements and declarations, added to controversial decisions by the Refereeing Council, have caused a regression that is increasing the toxicity of discourse in Portuguese football.

Aware that Villas-Boas's words would generate controversy and the risk of being included in the same batch as Rui Costa and Frederico Varandas, FC Porto understood that it could not remain silent after the classic. In addition, although it expressed institutional concerns about the appointment of Bruno Esteve for VAR, by not doing so publicly it avoided inflaming the environment before the match with Benfica or increasing the pressure on the participants of the refereeing – which, in the club's assessment, did not prevent the occurrence of errors.

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