‘TV case’: TAD upholds FC Porto fine over footage in Veríssimo room | OneFootball

The Sports Arbitration Court (TAD) unanimously rejected the appeal lodged by FC Porto against the 12,750-euro fine imposed by the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF), upholding the sanction due to the repeated display of controversial incidents in the dressing room of the refereeing team led by Fábio Veríssimo, at half-time of the match against SC Braga, played on 2 November 2025 at the Estádio do Dragão.

The ruling, dated 11 May 2026 and issued in case no. 2/2026, bearing the signature of presiding arbitrator Tiago Serrão, states that “The facts set out in points E), G) and I) reveal, at the very least, (serious) carelessness/inattention on the part of the Claimant”, a conclusion endorsed by the three arbitrators on the panel.

According to the facts established by the TAD, during the interval of the Matchday 10 league fixture, the television installed in the referees’ dressing room began showing, “repeatedly (in a loop)”, images of the goal disallowed for FC Porto in the first half. The situation was repeated again at the end of the match and, later, images were also shown from an under-13 game likewise officiated by Fábio Veríssimo, the match’s lead referee.

Despite their attempts, the refereeing team was unable to turn off the television. According to the ruling, “the remote control did not work and, when pressing the power button on the television itself, the message ‘enter unlock code’ appeared”. It further adds that “the said television had no plug for connection to a socket, having only a cable directly connected to the wall/ceiling”.

Fábio Veríssimo expressed his displeasure to Bertino Miranda, a former referee who is now an adviser and instructor in the refereeing department at FC Porto, telling him “that such conduct was not acceptable”. The facts received “wide coverage in the media”.

In its defence, FC Porto argued that everything resulted from a “manual error in choosing the locations where the content in question should be displayed”, admitting, at most, conduct that was “at most negligent”, but never intentional. Rui Jorge Rodrigues, responsible for operating the system, allegedly selected the refereeing team’s dressing room “inadvertently” by making “a mere ‘click’ on a ‘box’”.

Going further, the club also challenged the very validity of the disciplinary rule applied. For FC Porto, Article 118(b) of the Disciplinary Regulations for Competitions Organized by the League was “a blank sanctioning rule, a kind of ‘catch-all rule’ that violates “the requirement that punitive rules applied by public entities be sufficiently determinate, as imposed by the principles of legality and the rule of law”.

In FC Porto’s view, the conviction was based “on subjective and biased interpretations made of it by third parties unrelated to the club”, without there being any “serious damage to the image and good name of football competitions”. The court rejected all of these arguments.

As for intent, the ruling is unequivocal: “The sanctioning rule relevant here (…) does not require intent at the level of the subjective element of fault”. Article 118(b) clearly provides that clubs are punished “even on grounds of negligence”, that degree of fault being sufficient.

The TAD went even further by classifying the conduct as “gross or serious negligence”: “Not only did the failure occur more than once, but what is at issue is the dissemination of videos which, given their content, obviously could not be shown in the referees’ dressing room, and only a particularly careless person would engage in such conduct”.

The ruling cites several rules imposing specific duties, namely Article 19 of the Disciplinary Regulations, which enshrines duties of “loyalty, probity, truth and integrity”, Article 51 of the Competition Regulations, which requires “courteous and proper behaviour”, and Article 35 of the same instrument, which obliges clubs to act with “correctness, moderation and respect”. “The duty of civility is, in that framework, crucial and, together with other duties connected with sporting ethics, was plainly disregarded”, the document reads.

Particularly relevant is the reasoning concerning the damage caused to the image of the competitions. For the TAD, the conduct is harmful “in itself”, even if no actual influence on the refereeing is proven.

The court stresses that “the wide media coverage of the facts, combined with the external perception that a club allowed the repeated exposure of the refereeing team to potentially conditioning content, projects outward an image of instrumentalization of the refereeing function, undermining the institutional credibility of the competitions”.

The distinction between fact and perception is central to the decision: “One thing is whether the impartiality and independence of the refereeing were actually affected; another is (…) the external perception of the impartiality and independence of the refereeing and the regularity of the competition, regardless of any demonstration of actual influence over or conditioning of the decisions of the specific referees”.

In addition to upholding the 12,750-euro fine, FC Porto was also ordered to pay 5,105 euros, VAT included, in arbitration costs, an amount covering the arbitrators’ fees and administrative expenses. The decision was unanimous among the three members of the panel: Tiago Rodrigues Bastos, appointed by FC Porto, Pedro Melo, appointed by the FPF, and Tiago Serrão, chosen by the other two.

The club may still appeal to the Constitutional Court, but only on matters of constitutionality, since the merits of the decision cannot be reviewed.

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