28/01/05 Vitória de Guimarães are in the market for a new coach after Manuel Machado
handed in his resignation Wednesday when his side lost 3-1 at Vitória de Setúbal in the Taça. The team have been struggling to find their form in the SuperLiga
and have stalled in mid-table. The defeat at Setúbal will have been the last straw for the former Moreirense coach. International referee Lucílio Baptista
was heard by the Portuguese fraud squad Thursday in the context of the Apito Dourado ('Golden Whistle') case, but it was reported that he gave evidence as a witness only. Apito Dourado
, an action to combat corruption
in Portuguese football which was set into motion in April 2004, now has 23 in the dock, including Liga president Valentim Loureiro, FC Porto president Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa, Isabel Damasceno (Mayoress of Leiria) and a number of match officials.
FC Porto's Benni McCarthy is on the short-list to be named African Player of the Year. The other players on the five-man list are Emmer Adebayor (Mónaco), Didier Drogba (Chelsea),
Samuel Eto'o (Barcelona) and Jay-Jay Okocha (Bolton). 25/01/05 The Minister of Finance, Bagão Félix, has demanded bank guarantees from the professional clubs
to cover the approximately 19 million euros owed to the taxman. It seems that the Minister wants to clear the debt ahead of February's legislative elections. 16/01/05
National Team coach Luís Felipe Scolari has told Lisbon daily A Capital that he intends to stay in coaching for only five or six more years, after which time he will move into 'sports consultancy'.
He did not rule out the possibility of renewing his contract with the FPF when it expires in June 2006. 15/01/05 João Carlos Pereira, who recently parted company with Académica, has been named
the new coach of Nacional of Madeira to replace Casemiro Mior, who will take charge of the team for the last time against Sporting at the weekend. 14/01/05
It seems that there will be no Portuguese referees at the World Cup Finals in Germany in 2006. The preliminary list of 46 officials that will be tested in the coming months does not contain a single Portuguese.
13/01/05 The Brazilian press reported Wednesday that Nacional coach Casemiro Mior is set to move to Brasileirão runners-up Atlético Paranaense. Nacional were fourth in the
SuperLiga under Mior last season but are struggling to find their rhythm this. 12/01/05 Former Benfica president João Vale e Azevedo was sentenced to a total prison term of
six years Tuesday. He has already served three years of a term for wrongdoing over the transfer of Russian goalkeeper Ovchinnikov from Alverca to Benfica
in the late 90s: To that has now been added three counts of forgery with respect to the so-called 'EuroArea' affair, involving land on which the old Estádio da Luz
stood. He was found not guilty of embezzlement from the club and money- laundering. Vale e Azevedo is likely to appeal. Artur Jorge, who has been the coach of FC Porto, Benfica, PSG and the Portuguese national
team, among others, has signed a year-and-a-half contract with the Cameroonian national team. He will be joined by Raúl Águas as his assistant. 11/01/05
Practically all of the press ran stories Monday about a supposed crisis at Benfica, who slipped to fifth after the defeat Saturday at Sporting. There was talk of trouble in the changing room after the game, and
indirect calls for coach Giovanni Trapattoni to be shown the door. However, president Luís Filipe Vieira
appeared on TV in the evening to try to pour oil on troubled waters, saying that he had faith in the Italian and implying that he would be there for the duration. Lisbon airport had a throughput of
10.7 million passengers in 2004, an all-time record for the country. The figure was swelled with visitors for the Euro 2004 tournament. 08/01/05 Sporting coach José Peseiro has picked up a
two-week suspension for misconduct in the recent Sporting v Pampilhosa Taça de Portugal
tie. The suspension takes effect as from notification, so Peseiro will be able to coach from the bench for the Sporting v Benfica clássico Saturday. The Federação and the Liga
are hoping to meet the Minister of Finance, Bagão Félix, in the near future to discuss football's controversial tax debt claimed by the tax authorities. According to the Ministry, football (the clubs, the
Federação and the Liga) owe 21 million euros. The amount was arrived at by calculating the shortfall in receipts from the pools-like lottery TotoBola.since 1996. Dubbed TotoNegócio
('TotoBusiness'), receipts were meant to contribute to the clubs' tax bills over that period, but TotoBola's popularity has plummeted in the face of competition from TotoLoto and the new European lottery. The Ministry wants the money to be paid by the football authorities, and has threatened to take enforcement measures such as seizing players' passes.
União de Leiria's Brazilian ´keeper Helton has been voted player of the month of December by the Players' Union. "99.9% of this distinction belongs to my teammates," he said. 05/01/05 The FC Porto squad who recently won the Interconintental Cup, to round off two years of brilliant achievement, were awarded Medals of Sporting Merit by the Prime Minister
, Pedro Santana Lopes Wednesday. "Portugal should be proud of FC Porto," he said. A group of Sporting Braga fans were attacked by Celta
skinheads after Tuesday's game in Vigo to raise funds for the tsunami victims. One of the fans was stabbed in the back, but he was not seriously wounded. There were a mere 1,000 in the stands for the game.
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