After a series of incidents involving insults and alleged intimidation that have plunged Portuguese football into turmoil, the country’s referees are breaking their silence and protesting.
Match officials are speaking out against what they describe as intimidation from clubs and officials, staging pre-match protests in a rare act of defiance. The Portuguese football federation (FPF) has held emergency meetings with referee representatives, but clubs continue to highlight controversial decisions.
So how did it come to this? Relations between referees and clubs have never been warm in Portugal – some clubs have historically demanded behind closed doors that certain officials be kept off their games and in late July Benfica publicly criticised the appointment of Fábio Veríssimo for their Super Cup game against Sporting. Yet in recent weeks things have reached boiling point.
On 2 November Veríssimo accused Porto of pressuring him by broadcasting a replay of a disallowed goal on a television in his dressing room during half-time. With the game goalless, Veríssimo had blown for a foul after a Porto player collided with the Braga goalkeeper, ruling out a goal scored from the loose ball. According to Veríssimo’s official report, the television could not be turned off.
Veríssimo said that after the match, which Porto won 2-1, the screen switched to showing footage from a youth match between Porto and Benfica in 2024, which he had also officiated. In that game, he allowed a similar goal – in Benfica’s favour – after contact with Porto’s goalkeeper inside the six-yard box.
Benfica and Sporting have since accused Porto of trying to intimidate Veríssimo, and Sporting suggested the victory should be annulled if Porto were found guilty of wrongdoing.
Porto, in their only public comment, did not deny Veríssimo’s account. They released a statement listing penalties, red cards and other contentious calls they claim have gone against the club this season. Addressing Veríssimo directly, Porto accused him of threatening club officials in a previous game and of seeking “revenge” during the Braga match.
Veríssimo has not responded publicly but the FPF has defended the referees and continues to investigate the allegations related to the dressing room television. André Villas-Boas, Porto’s president, said the club would look into that too.
Tensions further escalated a week later when, during Benfica’s match against Casa Pia, a referee was allegedly threatened by a Benfica executive after awarding a controversial penalty. “You are a fucking embarrassment,” one Benfica official was reported to have said. Benfica were leading 2-0 and their joy when the spot-kick was saved turned to despair when the defender Tomás Araújo slammed the ball into his own net in trying to clear. A stoppage-time equaliser gave Casa Pia a draw.
José Mourinho, Benfica’s head coach, was involved in a brief post-match exchange with the referee, Gustavo Correia, though nothing unusual was recorded. The FPF is investigating both matters. Benfica wrote on their website above the video highlights that the referee had “awarded a penalty to the visitors without justification”.
Pedro Henriques, a former top-flight referee and former lieutenant colonel in the Portuguese army, believes acts of intimidation are nothing new – just more sophisticated. “We’ve moved from the traditional kicking down the dressing-room door, common in the 90s, to looping images on a television that can’t be turned off,” he says.
Henriques argues that such gestures are often performative, meant to please supporters rather than sway officials. This behaviour goes largely unpunished, with fines and suspensions for the biggest clubs minimal and delayed.
“Presidents and club directors do this to show off, to say: ‘We’re watching them, we’ll scare them,’” Henriques says. “But, the truth is, the chance of that actually influencing a referee is 0.0%.”
Even with video assistant referees, mistakes happen. Last weekend Sporting were incorrectly awarded a late corner at Santa Clara – and scored the winning goal from it. The margin for error, Henriques notes, has never been smaller. The award of corners is not covered by VAR but Henriques says: “The supporter’s logic is: if the ref makes a mistake and VAR doesn’t correct it, then the referees must be corrupt.”
In response, the Portuguese referees’ association last weekend staged a symbolic protest, match officials walking on to the pitch without the teams in the top two divisions – a coordinated act of defiance meant to signal they will not be intimidated.
Referees, usually the quietest figures on the field, have found their voice. The head of the FPF’s refereeing council has defended them publicly, revealing that 97% of refereeing decisions in the first 10 rounds were correct. Threatened officials, he said, would continue to be assigned matches.
The protests have yet to affect the games but Portuguese football is playing on the edge – and the next whistle could spark more than just another controversy.
