For the past 20 years, the suspician climate surrounding FC Porto, has been immense. And it’s not just something Sporting and Benfica fans feel. Likewhise, this climate doesn’t revolve around FC Porto exclusivelly.

Some 6-7 years ago, Judiciary Police leader, Maria Morgado, released a book, in which it was more or less insinuated that +/- all the portuguese football world, was like a big net. You start pulling a string and it all follows…

Like Italy but at a smaller scale…
Although in PT the two biggest clubs aren’t yet “owned” by the prime minister and media owner, nor the biggest car industry group… 8)

Now, the reality seems to be that the it all boils down to 2 matches, where ironically FC Porto had absolutelly no need of bribing refs, in a season they dominated everything and also won the Champions League.
One particular case is a ridiculous draw against all mighty Beira Mar, not even in the 1st currently, in Mourinho’s days…
This is absolutelly ridiculous…

So, they’ll either be found guilty on that, which means that all the suspicions were sort of right and nothing other than these 2 matches could be found, (which gives you a feeling of utter injustice and that everything everybody noticed, for some 20 years, was actually true, and in that case 6 points is really close to nothing); OR they are not found guilty, and the satus quo remains, and it all goes down in history books as portuguese/latin tendency for a suspicion climate, they’re all in it and none is better than the other, etc…

I’m not an expert, but if you ask me, it’s obvious that in past years FC Porto was clealry favoured by refs, with worse than all, a certain sense of impunity.

Problem is this has to be proven.

In the middle of all this, FC Porto has, at the same time, deserved all their victories. This year was paradigmatic. Their dominion was clear. And for them, the thought is obvious: “we’re that good, you can take away 6 points, we still have a 14 lead, we’re still champions”. Their economic and sportive managment, together with their performanvce, along the years, has clearly been a notch above the others. Like it or not.

Contrary to Italy, Portugal does not have a Sports Tribunal. So everything has to go through “civil”/”normal” chanels.

If you ask me, they might be charged, loose 6 points, their past gets errased and cleansed, and other smaller teams will get more severe punishments, as others will probably also be found guilty. I don’t think a revolution will happen.

Just to finish, it is important to say that in PT, complaining about the ref and a general suspicion climate is the atmosfere. Which makes it very difficult to judge the facts, or even determine them.

@Jon: like it or not, Mourinho is currently the best coach in the world, by a long, long mile… One might argue about C Ronaldo, but I think that there’s no possible argument around Mourinho…
@Dave: if FCP’d get banished from Europe, you’d have to ban Juve from the globe…