Lisbon (AFP)
Relatively spared from the coronavirus, the Portuguese could hardly do without their king sport, football. But the resumption behind closed doors, promised for the end of May and crucial for club finances, reflects the structural shortcomings of the round ball in Portugal.
In a country that has just over a thousand dead for ten million inhabitants, the government opened the way last Thursday to hold the last ten days of the championship and the final of the Portuguese Cup. And major clubs, such as leader Porto or his dolphin Benfica, hastened to resume training on Monday, respecting measures of distancing.
However, this forced recovery symbolizes the fragility of the clubs, eager to touch at all costs the TV rights of the championship: "Portuguese football does not survive financially without matches", explained to AFP the sports commentator Luis Freitas Lobo , adding that "if the clubs found themselves so quickly on the brink of rupture, it was because their problems were there before the pandemic".
"The future of football is not secure," even said the president of the Portuguese federation Fernando Gomes in a column published Monday to defend "the construction of a new path" that makes national football "more solid" .
Fernando Gomes criticizes in particular clubs with poorly insured receipts and too dependent, for the biggest, on income from participation in European competitions while Benfica and FC Porto have been quickly ousted from the Champions League this season. In addition, many Portuguese clubs are very dependent on the resale of players on the transfer market to balance their budgets, a windfall that may dry up in a sluggish transfer window.
- "Run for your life" -
To save the clubs of the 2nd division, which will not complete their championship, the League and the federation have planned to pay them the total amount of 2.5 million euros as compensation.
But to receive this help, they will have to accept the decision announced Tuesday by the League to freeze the current classification of the 2nd division.
At least one of the clubs relegated to the lower floor, Cova da Piedade, has threatened to open legal proceedings. One of his players, the Portuguese international Edinho, reacted with "disgust" by denouncing the primacy of the "financial question" over sporting considerations.
According to a player from Casa Pia, also relegated, "this decision makes Portuguese football dirty". "The first division is assured ... and for the others it is safe who can", added this footballer quoted anonymously by the sports daily Record.
In short, if the pressure of the clubs, and in particular of the "big three" that are Benfica, Porto and Sporting, paved the way for the recovery of the 1st division, it is above all to ensure their "financial survival", underlines Luis Freitas Lobo.
Sporting, whose situation was particularly fragile before the health crisis, had to reduce its players' wages by 40% and place almost all of its employees on short-time working in mid-April.
- Only one positive case -
In this context, the terms of the recovery remain surrounded by great vagueness.
Wednesday, sporting bodies and health authorities were still working on the date of the resumption, while the League aimed instead for its part on June 6 and 7.
Like the calendar, the health protocol, which must be validated by the General Directorate of Health, and the list of stages enabling it to be respected have not yet been finalized.
Among the teams, the screening operations have so far detected only one case of contagion, this week, among the under 23s of the Lisbon club of Belenenses.
Another question to be decided: the possibility of retransmitting the end of the championship on a free-to-air television channel. If this would prevent supporters from gathering with friends or in cafes to follow the matches, the championship may then be called upon to compensate the pay channels which hold the broadcasting rights for the competition.
© 2020 AFP