Porto Banned From Champions League

[Dan]

Next season according to Setanta Sports News

[King Ellis]

Why?

[Dan]

"Following Bribery Scandal."

[stokeriño]

It'd be for this, though they don't have anything online about it yet.

[Crybaby Bunting]

Yeah it's regarding two fixtures in 2003/2004, wasn't that the same year Mourinho was there?

[stokeriño]

Yeah, but the Portuguese league don't seem to think he was involved (and on the basis that it's some guy with access to Porto's money paying off another club, to me it would seem reasonable that it be a more backroom deal than the manager).

Edited June 4, 2008 by stokeriño

[IAceI]

Boavista got demoted a league for doing the same, but one or two matches more too wasn't it? So where the line between 6 points and demoted a league is, I'm not sure. Probably the same place the line between biggest team in Portugal and former CL winners and alright Portguese team is I'd imagine though.

[Guest Kou]

No Champions League and being relegated are about the same penalties though. This means that some Porto players might fuck off elsewhere to play in Europe and their revenue for this season will get the shaft due to not being in Europe.

Sure it's not as harsh as relegation but it'll have a sucker punch effect to the club. Not that I know offhand of anyone that plays there.

[ONO]

How could you forget Quaresma >_>

And you supposidly play FM!

[Guest Kou]

He gets sold in five seconds once you start a new game, like I remember that he even plays for Porto.

[Colossus]

Boavista got demoted a league for doing the same, but one or two matches more too wasn't it? So where the line between 6 points and demoted a league is, I'm not sure. Probably the same place the line between biggest team in Portugal and former CL winners and alright Portguese team is I'd imagine though.

Porto was only attempted bribery of referee, and Boavista was bribery of referee

[Guest Kou]

No one gets punished for attempted chemistry.

[Johnny Latino Heat]

Pfft. Porto has always been under suspicion by anyone (who isn't a Porto fan) who watches Portuguese football. The referees constantly help them while hurting their opponents. This has gone for years now. I remember at least one game where the ref gave about 7 minutes overtime. As soon as Porto scored and drew, the game ended. Another famous incident is when they played against Benfica (bitter rivalry), Benfica scored, the ball entered cleanly almost 50 cm and yet the referee said "play on" when anyone could clearly see Vitor Baía, Porto's GK at the time, took the ball from inside the goal.

And the sentence is a joke. 6 points deduction? When Porto had a 20 point lead? And afterwards with the chairman of the board coming out and saying "we could have decided this in December 2007, we had the proper evidence." (when Porto only had a 5-6 point lead. Right.)

Portuguese football disgusts me nowadays. You can smell the corruption and no one does anything serious.

[alldaws1]

CSKA Sofia have now been excluded from the Champions League due to their debts. Does anyone know whether UEFA plan to give these places to other teams or will they just re-sort the tournament (ie. give byes)?

Edited June 5, 2008 by AD

[-A-]

Allegedly UEFA was trying to have their place taken by the highest ranked non-qualifier in Europe ... AC Milan. That makes a mockery of their insistence that only 4 (and preferably 3) teams from a country could be in the Champions League. I'd imagine whoever came third in the Bulgarian league (Levski I think I read) will be pretty pissed off if that happens.

[stokeriño]

I would have thought that a random draw from the clubs that lose out in the Third Qualifying Round would be the fairest option.

[Scott McFly]

If a team from a certain country has been excluded for whatever reason, then that country (or more specifically their FA) still should have the right to fill the place. So it should go to the next placed team in the league.