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27/04/06
Sporting captain Ricardo Sá Pinto will end his career in a blaze not of glory but of anti-climax after the Liga Disciplinary Committee suspended him for two games
; there are just two fixtures left in the Liga programme. The fiery Sá Pinto was sent off for words to a linesman in the 89th minute of last weekend's 0-0 draw at home to Naval. He was also fined 2,400 euros.
Académica president Eduardo Simões
has been suspended for one month and fined 1,000 euros following comments made at the end of the match against Benfica on the 18th jornada: he called the referee Artur Soares "a real artist".
Benfica's Director of Football José Veiga has maintained that coach Ronald Koeman
will remain at the club at least until the end of his contract, which terminates at the end of next season. There has been some speculation about Koeman's continuation after the team went out of the Champiosn League and is struggling to make second place in the Liga ahead of Sporting.
26/04/06
Sport Lisboa e Benfica (SLB), to give Benfica its full name, is the biggest club in Portugal. Fans of the club, one of the nicknames of which is O Glorioso, have a favourite chant:
SLB - SLB
SLBSLBSLB
GLORIOSO - SLB
GLORIOSOSLB
Unfortunately, the scan of the chant allows for an abusive version in which the words 'filhos da puta' (literally 'sons of whores') replace the word 'Glorioso'. This version is chanted by the fans
of many Portuguese clubs against what is widely seen as the club of the establishment, even if the opponeents on the day are not Benfica.
It was expected in the circumstances, then, that FC Porto's fans would chant the abusive version after clinching the title on Saturday. What was unexpected, however, was that the FC Porto players would join in
from the balcony of the Estádio do Dragão, the fans thronging below.
The incident, caught by the cameras of independent television channel TVI, has caused quite a stir amongst Benfiquistas, and found its way onto the front page of the sports daily A Bola. Benfica have yet to react officially.
25/04/06
FC Porto president Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa, Porto's Director of Football Reinaldo Telles, the referee Jacinto Paixão and the entrepreneur António Araújo
have all been cleared of wrongdoing in the so-called Apito Dourado ('Golden Whistle') process, the ongoing investigation into corruption within the
game. This particular ruling relates to a game between FC Porto and Estrela da Amadora two seasons ago while José Mourinho was still at the club. The
suspicion was that the referee had been contacted with a view to him influencing the result of the game, but the suspicion has now, it seems, been lifted.
According to the French magazine France Football, José Mourinho is the best paid coach in the world; he earned 10.9 million euros last year.
14/04/06
Benfica have announced that they now have 150,000 sócios (associate members), making them the second most heavily supported club in the world.
(Manchester United have 152,000). The holders of card numbers 149,999 to 150,001 will be presented with a free season ticket for next season.
12/04/06
After taking Benfica to the quarter-finals of the Champions League, coach Ronald Koeman is suddenly out of favour with the Benfica support,
especially after a (fortunate) 2-2 draw with Marítimo at the Luz at the weekend. A TV poll had 67% of those who phoned in wanting him out.
Meanwhile, rumours from England have him lined up for the Newcastle job.
Struggling Vitória de Guimarães, the tfourth best supported club in the country, returned to training after the weekend to jeers from around 300 fans
observing the session. The fans have called a boycott of the upcoming game against bottom club Penafiel, although fans who adhere to the boycott have
been asked to turn up at the ground but not enter. Vitória fans are unhappy with what they see as the players' lack of commitment to an increasingly hopeless-looking cause.
Standard Liège captain, Sérgio Conceição, has received just a four-month ban and a fine of 2,500 euros after ripping off his shirt and thrusting it in the
referee's face when he was sent off in a recent Belgian Cup game. The former Portuguese international was fearing a much longer suspension that would have finished his career prematurely.
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