Loopholes and A-holes

Apparently Luisao will be able to play the next two Benfica games.
As I posted here before, Luisao had been sanctioned with a two game suspension as a result of an elbow to the face of Sapunaru during last Saturday’s match. The elbow which wasn’t caught by the referee, but caught by SPORTTV cameras.

As a result, the league’s disciplinary committee decided to apply a 2 game suspension to Luisao. Now mind you, this disciplinary process was only opened because the referee did not see the play, an important fact to keep in mind. Taking into consideration all of Bruno Alves’ MMA displays last season, is it safe to assume that the referee saw them and the league didn’t need to intervene?

On with it…

Benfica will appeal the sanction today, which will set in motion a more intricate and time consuming process, where witnesses and experts will have to be heard on the case. A decision to the appeal could come as early as the 12th of September.

Now here’s how it get’s tricky…

If in fact the 2 game suspension is upheld, after the first appeal, Benfica will then appeal to the FPF’s Justice Counsel, who at the moment is inexistent.

Just a brief run down on that

If you recall, FPF’s Justice Counsel got together sometime in the middle of July to decide about the sentences that were applied to Porto and Boavista as a result of the Golden Whistle case. During that meeting there were some shady events that took place with the Counsel’s president, who prematurely closed the meeting when he realized the vote wasn’t going to go Porto’s way.
FPF’s law states that the meeting could not have been adjourned without the consent of the majority of its members and the members present decided to continue the meeting without their president, a meeting that later deliberated to uphold Boavista and Porto’s sentences.
The Justice Counsel president, later claimed the meeting that was held after his departure was not legal and void for all intents and purposes.
FPF’s president Gilberto Madail, called on Freitas do Amaral, a well known politician and a very credible juristic expert to analyze the occurrences of that meeting.
Freitas do Amaral concluded that the second meeting was in fact legal, and the conclusions reached in that meeting in regards to Porto and Boavista were legal.

Following Freitas do Amaral’s deliberations; Gilberto Madail criticized his Justice Counsel and called for steps to be taken to revamp the counsel. Four of the six members resigned this past month, making the Justice Counsel an inexistent entity at the moment..

With elections only scheduled for October, it’s safe to say no final decision, in regards to Luisao, will be reached before then. Therefore Luisao should have the green light to keep playing.


PS - As I finished writting this post, Maisfutebol reports that the 4 members that resigned have received subpoenas from the Departament of Investigation and Penal Action, in order to answer questions. At this time it's not known what these questions will be about, but it'll most likely involve the events that took place during that meeting.