What happened to Football?
If you are a football fan, surely you have probably heard of the "Primeira Liga". It is the top level of the national football league of Portugal, created in 1934. It used to be a proud and one of the best leagues globally with lots of history. Some of their teams competed and even won European trophies. Nowadays, it is known as the biggest joke in football. Portuguese football can best be described in 3 simple words: corrupted, racist and violent.
Suppose you thought the little brawl during the Manchester City vs Atletico de Madrid was appalling. In that case, it is because you haven't seen anything. The absolute carnage in a Primeira Liga game between a Porto and Sporting ended with a 6-minute altercation between the players on and off the pitch, including a punch or two thrown by some of the ball-boys. A total of 11 yellow cards and 5 red cards were shown by the end of the game, with Pepe being one of the protagonists once again.
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. Fights like this keep happening all the time, and the fans can not help but feel ashamed of it. How can professional athletes that play at the highest level act in such an unprofessional and borderline childish way? It is incredibly disrespectful to the fans and the club they represent. Many people take time off their schedules and pay for season tickets to watch their team play, not some petty brawls.
The discrimination in Portuguese football persists, even after the viral episode where Porto forward Moussa Marega walked off midway through a match as a protest against all the racist comments and gestures from the opposing team's fans. After the game, Porto's match report described the abuse as "a sad situation that should make the Guimaraes club and Portuguese football blush with shame". Unfortunately, this is only one of many occurrences. Sadly, most of these kinds of abuse usually go unnoticed or aren't reported. It is insane and inexcusable that there is so much racist and xenophobic abuse from players and fans on the pitch and on social media, even in this day and age.
Liga Portuguesa is full of corruption. There have been claims that the bigger clubs, such as Benfica, Sporting and Porto of attempting to bribe officials and rival teams, which lack any sort of investigation as to whether this is factual or hearsay. The biggest corruption scandal to come out in the last few years came from Luís Filipe Vieira, 33rd president of sports club Benfica. Vieira was the subject of a civil lawsuit filed by lawyer and Benfica member Jorge Mattamouros. They sought to have him removed from the club's presidency for violating the club's regulations. Vieira and José António dos Santos (Portuguese businessman and the largest individual shareholder of SAD do SL Benfica, also known as the "King of Chickens") were detained on suspicion of breach of trust aggravated fraud, tax evasion, forgery, and money laundering against Benfica.
Benfica is not the only club with a president that has shown shady behaviour. Bruno de Carvalho was probably the most controversial president of "Sporting Club de Portugal". One of the most remarkable occurrences of his presidency was his confrontation with Carlos Pinho, the president of Arouca, in the Alvalade tunnel. He was caught on a security camera spitting on Pinho's face. The case, whose images circulated on television and social networks, would later cost Bruno de Carvalho a six-month suspension. However, that was not the worst thing as a president of Sporting.
On May 15, 2018, two days after Sporting had been defeated in a match against Marítimo, leaving Benfica isolated in second place in the Primeira Liga and qualifying for the Champions League, about 40 masked hooligans entered the locker rooms and attacked elements of Sporting's 1st football team. Almost 6 months late, on the 11th of November, it came to light that the leader of the "lions" orchestrated, alongside the leader of Sporting Ultras, Mustafá, an attack on their own players and staff members. It is inconceivable that the very president of this club is the one targeting his own players simply for being unhappy with their recent results.
This simply should not happen in a European country. How can Primeira Liga survive if the people leading the clubs are the most prominent mobsters in Portugal?
The fans are tired of all this needless and senseless fighting, the paid-out officials, the racism, the unprofessionalism from the players and staff, the biased football commentators, the media and even the corrupted club presidents. We appear to have lost all love and respect for the beautiful game. Personally, this is progressively causing me to lose my enthusiasm for the sport. Football has gotten far too destructive, and no one notices or even cares. As a football fan, all I want to see is a competitive but fair league with competent referees and players with a professional and respectful deminer.
I still believe Portuguese football can restore its former glory. They are still a European superpower, there are still players from the Primeira Liga who go on to become legends, and the supporters are still among the most passionate and loyal in the world.
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Intended Publication: The Guardian
The Guardian is known for opinion articles that delve into racism, xenophobic behaviour and unfairness in football, mainly the Premier League but also with other European Leagues. For instance, they have written articles regarding the racist incident involving Marega which I mention in this Opinion Piece