European Court orders Portuguese state to compensate FC Porto | OneFootball

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered the Portuguese state to pay FC Porto’s SAD 15,300 euros in compensation, after finding that there had been a violation of freedom of expression. The ruling, made public this Tuesday and approved unanimously, also orders the payment of 6,465 euros in legal costs and expenses.

Despite this specific conviction, the ECHR found that, in general, the disciplinary sanctions imposed by the Disciplinary Board of the Portuguese Football Federation on Pinto da Costa, former president, and on Francisco J. Marques, former communications director, were justified. In the court’s view, the criticism of refereeing made by the Porto officials went beyond the limits of freedom of expression.

The case reached the European court after several disciplinary punishments were imposed on the SAD and its officials. At issue were statements made on the Porto Canal program «Universo do Porto – Da Bancada» about the refereeing of the match between Benfica and Estoril Praia, as well as texts in Dragões Diário and an interview given to the newspaper O Jogo.

In total, the ECHR examined several disciplinary cases: three against Francisco J. Marques and FC Porto SAD over statements from January and February 2017; one against the communications director for remarks made on a television program on 28 February 2017; one against the SAD for comments published in Dragões Diário on 8 April 2019; and one against Pinto da Costa over an editorial in the same publication on 6 May 2019 and an interview from 14 May 2019.

In its assessment, the European court upheld most of the decisions of the national courts, which had already confirmed the disciplinary sanctions. The judges concluded that the statements went beyond technical criticism of the referees’ work and instead included accusations of «corruption, match manipulation and the deliberate favoring of certain teams».

The judgment highlights that «the language used was hyperbolic, speculative and did not support the accusations made», also stressing that the complainants «did not provide evidence to support the accusations of corruption and manipulation of results». For that reason, the ECHR concluded that there had been no violation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights in five of the cases examined.

However, in one specific case against FC Porto SAD, the court ruled differently, finding that the sanction imposed violated freedom of expression, which led to the compensation now ordered against Portugal.

The judges also recalled that referees, because of the central role they perform, «must tolerate a higher level of criticism than an ordinary citizen, including harsh or hostile criticism», provided that such criticism is limited to their professional performance and does not concern their private lives.

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