Villas-Boas sets Benfica and Sporting apart in dealings with FC Porto | OneFootball

André Villas-Boas addressed FC Porto’s institutional relationship with Benfica and Sporting, striking a conciliatory tone toward the Lisbon club and a very critical one toward Sporting’s leadership.

“The institutional relationship with Benfica is one of great respect and dignity. There have been more excesses on my part, as FC Porto president, toward Rui Costa than the other way around. I have even recently made a mea culpa.

I always try to make amends whenever I can, and I do so again here. There is a historic rivalry with the club that leads in the number of national championships, though not in the number of national and international football titles, because that belongs to us, but one that FC Porto wants to overtake as quickly as possible. Everything that is special and that involves FC Porto and Benfica is something we should honor within that historic rivalry.

Now, that is not the case with Sporting, simply because its leadership at this moment operates on a level of insult, slander, and victimization regarding FC Porto that we cannot tolerate. And, although there is some strategic alignment regarding what Portuguese football needs, the reality is that, as a result of this permanent victimization, the slander, and the insults they hurl weekly at FC Porto, there is no possible relationship, nor can there be one.

Has FC Porto become a useful target for Sporting’s internal management? Perhaps yes, supported by a media group with greater club affinity toward Sporting that basically tries to filter and shape opinion guided by a strategic vision and a popular voice in Sporting’s favor. Everything Sporting president Frederico Varandas has done at the club has been to transform a recently successful club, one that asserts itself and that was built to become a winner.

Something it was not, because it always lived in very evident political or sporting instability. Therefore, that is a success and a credit to him. But he cannot live in permanent victimization, insult, and slander toward FC Porto, which reached its peak in the pavilion case and the ammonia smell. Sporting went beyond all reasonable limits.

FC Porto has already submitted all the well-supported documents to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and the most likely outcome is that this case invented by Sporting will be shelved. And from that point on, FC Porto will go all out against Sporting.”

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