FC Porto fight to bring William Gomes to Choupana: appeal heads to CAS | OneFootball

FC Porto continues to contest the suspension of William Gomes and will file an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAD), as well as a request for an injunction at the Central Administrative Court of the South (TCAS), with the aim of possibly suspending the second match of the ban imposed on the Brazilian winger after his sending off in Rio Maior, against Casa Pia.

The club is acting swiftly, because the courts do not operate on weekends: in order to have William available for the match the day after tomorrow, the TCAS would have to make a favorable decision today. The request for an injunction has already been submitted due to the TAD’s inability to form the necessary arbitral panel in time.

This initiative comes after the appeal to the Full Disciplinary Board (CD) of the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF), which, as reported, considered the case partially valid, reducing the fine imposed on the player by about 300 euros, from 1,224 to 918 euros, but maintaining the two-match suspension “due to the rounding rules resulting from article 56, no. 5 of the RDLPFP,” as stated in the ruling. That article of the Disciplinary Regulations of competitions organized by Liga Portugal reads: “if the application of an aggravating or mitigating circumstance results in a non-integer number, the sanction is rounded, up or down, to the nearest whole number, but never less than one unit.” In short, the CD based its decision on William Gomes’ disciplinary record, who was sent off for the first time in his career in the match in question.

FC Porto believes there is inconsistency in the criteria: the first of the two-match suspension—already served in the classic against Sporting—differs from the one-match ban imposed on Martín Fernández of Gil Vicente, also by the CD, in an incident considered identical to the one involving William in Rio Maior.

André Villas-Boas himself justified this position at Estádio do Dragão during the World Cup trophy presentation ceremony: “We will appeal, because we had a completely identical incident here in the match against Gil Vicente with Thiago Silva, which resulted in a one-match suspension. Without wishing to downplay the injuries suffered by the Casa Pia player, the injuries to Thiago Silva could have had the same impact. The violence is the same, so we will appeal.” As the appeal did not achieve the desired result, the club is once again taking legal action.

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