FC Porto is suspended from this years' edition of the Champions League, due to attempt of referee bribery a couple years ago. The decision was by UEFA and it was announced by the club today (the official UEFA statement should be up any minute).

This comes as a consequence of the italian calciocaos scandal - AC Milan was qualified into the Champions League regardless of the scandal that year, and therefore UEFA got pissed off and approved a law to ensure the same thing wouldn't happen again. Now FC Porto is the first team caught out by this law.

FC Porto has appealed from the decision but it's hard to imagine UEFA will backtrack. I remind you we have been docked 6 points in the portuguese championship this year (but it didn't really affect us much as we had 20 points of advantage over all other clubs). The bribery attempt was in the 2003/2004 season, when we were european champions, and it's a bit silly because the 2 games in question didn't mean much as we also had a big advantage in the championship, and ultimately we didn't even win those games.

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Last edited by noikeee on Jun-04-2008 at 14:34

This reeks of double standards to me.

Even as someone who suports milan, they should never have been allowed to enter the champions league for their cheating in serie a. I think the fact its porto and not say real madrid, inter or ac milan again has made this decision all the more easy for uefa to take.

Not really, I don't blame UEFA. As I said, the law was passed due to Milan having qualified - UEFA didn't want Milan to be in the Champions League that year but did not have legal reasons to stop them. It just happens that we were the first to be caught out by the new law, tough luck.

It all comes down to our chairman, who shouldn't have been bribing irrelevant games in the first place.

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unlucky mate Perhaps you need a Sporting or Benfica shirt for next seasons european games

doh!

quote:

Originally posted by Ian unlucky mate Perhaps you need a Sporting or Benfica shirt for next seasons european games

A Guimarães shirt, maybe! With this ban on Porto, they climb to a direct qualification slot for the Champions League.

They're most likely going to be annihilated, but at least I'm glad it's them who get the slot and not Benfica (who get promoted to the Champions League playoffs instead of the UEFA Cup - but some Maccabi Haifa or FC Yerevan will take care of knocking them out )

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quote:

Originally posted by noikeee Maccabi Haifa

I wish...we couldn't even make to the Inter-toto this year we suck big time...

Estamos sempre convosco
Vamos a todo o lado
Queremos ganhar
Não paramos de cantar
Força Benfica Allez
Força Benfica Allez
Força Benfica Allez
É o Benfica Allez Allez!!!!

ITs a celebration bitches BENFICA STYLE MOTHAFUCKASSSSS!!!!!!!!!!




















BENFICA BENFICA BENFICA!

You gotta love poser fans, they'll do things like pick up a completely unheard of chant, and pass it off as it was the team's official anthem or something.

Seriously, I've never heard that one.

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sempre contra a corrente do jogo

We save the making fun for teams we actually follow

When are they going to bust Chelsea for bribing the refs in the semi finals this year

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quote:

Originally posted by noikeee Seriously, I've never heard that one.

me neither

I just went and tried to find really quickly some annoying Benfica vids just to fuck around with you