Corrupto benfica desmascarado pelo NEW YORK TIMES

LER A NOTÍCIA INTEGRAL AQUI

Judges, prosecutors and even Portugal’s prime minister count themselves as Benfica supporters. But what happens when those fans are allowed to preside over cases that affect the club’s interests?

Benfica often boasts that it can count more than half of Portugal’s population as supporters, and judges, prosecutors, top police officials and even the country’s prime minister are regular guests in the directors’ box at the team’s matches. One judge has been so loyal, in fact, that he was honored last year with a Golden Eagle lapel pin, symbolic of his half-century affiliation with the club.

So when it was revealed that a judge, not the one given the lapel pin but another one, had joined the legion of critics assailing a 31-year-old computer hacker, Rui Pinto, who had embarrassed Benfica by publishing some of its darkest secrets online, few rushed to his defense.

(…)

That power, Benfica’s critics say, affords the club and its leaders a type of leverage that extends far beyond the soccer field, and explains why some refer to it as the Octopus.

Ana Gomes, a career diplomat turned anticorruption campaigner and one of Pinto’s most vocal supporters, said in a recent interview that she believed Benfica’s outsize influence had given it a privileged status in Portuguese society, particularly when it came to legal matters. The phrase she used to describe that status — “state capture” — refers to the notion that private entities like corporations, or maybe even a popular sports team, can grow so powerful that they are able, if they choose, to unduly influence the state itself.

“State capture is done through the capture of people who are in an institutional position in the state, and of course one key pillar is the justice system,” said Gomes, who has been campaigning on Pinto’s behalf. “If you have judges who are captured, or don’t mind having the appearance of being captured, we have a problem.”

Benfica, which was asked for comment on Monday, provided a lengthy defense of its actions on Wednesday night, after publication of this article online.

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The disclosures were hailed in some corners for shining a light on the underbelly of the world’s most popular sport, but for now they are producing only anxiety for Pinto. That is because his fate now rests, potentially, in the hands of a judge, Paulo Registo, who may already have signaled he believes the defendant is guilty.

After being picked to preside over Pinto’s trial, Registo worked quickly to delete social media posts linking himself to Benfica, but not before they had been noticed by journalists and others. In one, the judge was reported to have liked a post that described Pinto as a “pirate.”

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“The judge that will judge Rui Pinto doesn’t hide his love for Benfica,” read one headline from a news outlet that reprinted some of the messages.

That association offered more ammunition to critics who have long bemoaned what they considered to be a close relationship between Portugal’s most important institutions and Benfica. (One of the leaks revealed a list of contact details for 44 judges who had been invited to Benfica games.)

But it was not the first time Registo had overseen a case closely linked to his favorite team.

Before he was named to lead Pinto’s trial, Registo served on a three-judge panel overseeing a case involving Benfica’s former legal director, Paulo Gonçalves. The legal director was accused of trading perks like prime seats and club merchandise to two court officials who are accused of illegally gaining access to details of ongoing investigations into Benfica and then passing that confidential information to team officials.

Yet even though he was the head of the club’s legal department, and his actions benefited the club, the court allowed Gonçalves to obscure his links to Benfica by claiming he had acted in a private capacity. A court of appeals judge later complained that Benfica itself should have been charged. (…)

CONCLUSÃO DO CORRUPTO BENFICA E SEUS DIRIGENTES E ADEPTOS:

Metade da redação do  

@nytimes

é portista, a outra é sportinguista. 
Na Alemanha é a mesma coisa com o

@derspiegel

Em Inglaterra com o

@guardian

Em França com a

@Mediapart

Em Espanha com o

@_infoLibre

No corrupto, decadente, centralista e colonialista lisboaGAL: RTP, SIC, TVI, CMTV, ABola, Record, isso é que são Órgãos De Comunicação sérios #irony