It started with an argument and barely got better after that. The past five months or so have seen a flurry of arrests; drug trafficking and money laundering charges; an undercurrent of illegal data breaches; vague accusations of intimidation; and a slew of people accused of financial impropriety, dishonesty and betrayal.
At least 64 countries around the world will hold elections this year. So will the EU. The campaign will be fierce. Often, they can be poisonous. Yet few have the capacity to be as vicious, or provide such an illuminating case study on the state of democracy in 2024, as the man who decides who becomes president of FC Porto.
Like dozens of clubs across Europe, Porto, one of the three biggest clubs in Portuguese football, is owned by its members. Their number currently exceeds 140,000. Every few years, the club holds elections for President and Executive Committee to determine who should govern the club on their behalf.
Often, these are nothing more than paperwork. Only a small minority of members voted. When there is a choice, it is usually between two essentially indistinguishable old men. Until the final round of elections in 2020, Porto was a democracy in name only.
Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa has been president of Porto since 1982. During that time, he saw the team crowned European champions twice – in 1987 and 2004 – and established them as Portugal’s preeminent force. Under Pinto da Costa, Porto won 23 Portuguese titles, nine more than their nearest rival Benfica at the time.
Back then, people generally had little interest in change. Often, a club’s election might attract a strongman from somewhere in the former Soviet bloc. Pinto da Costa was essentially re-elected unopposed, with the vote becoming nothing more than a tick-box exercise, a parade of bureaucracy and all the excitement that comes with it.
Things are very different this year. About 35,000 members are expected to vote on Saturday, with turnout well above normal. They will be asked to choose one of three presidential candidates on the ballot.
They include Pinto da Costa, 82, and Nuno Lobo, a 54-year-old businessman and failed 2020 challenger. However, what is more eye-catching is André Villas-Boas, who at 46 years old is still full of boyishness and is not only hailed as a young upstart, but also coached Chelsea and Tottenham. Naham Hotspur, and is also the head coach who led Porto to success. 2011 Triple Crown. He was appointed under the chairmanship of Pinto da Costa at the age of 31.
Villas-Boas announced his candidacy in November – saying it had always been his dream to become club president as a life member – in a lavish speech attended by a host of former Porto players players.
He then tries to be diplomatic with the people who give him a chance. Granted, this message was motivated by political expediency, and while people are grateful to Pinto da Costa, it’s time for a change. (Villas-Boas was less kind to the manager he made his name with: In the stirring montage of Porto’s greatest victory, Jose Mourinho was conspicuous by his absence.)
However, by challenging powerful incumbents, Villas-Boas soon found it increasingly difficult to maintain this particular course.Members of Porto’s biggest super faction, Super Dragões, at a club meeting in November reportedly attacked Those who spoke out against the club’s leadership.There were more than a dozen people at that time subsequently arrested, including the group’s leader, Fernando Madureira. Police later raided his home and found drugs, weapons and thousands of euros in cash. (Madureira remains in jail, awaiting trial.)
This sets the tone. All three candidates have spent the past few months touring various locations around the city, visiting fan groups and canvassing votes, as any self-respecting presidential candidate would. The rhetoric grew increasingly angrier. “Almost every day, it’s like a laundromat, washing dirty clothes,” Lobo said.
Pinto da Costa was clearly stung by what he saw as his former protégé’s betrayal, at one point comparing Villas-Boas to his dog. He accused Villas-Boas of surrounding himself with “enemies of FC Porto” and suggested he was just a puppet for others. He emphasized Villas-Boas’s upper-middle-class roots, casting him as an elitist snob and suggested his campaign illegally obtained the phone numbers of voting members.
Villas-Boas, on the other hand, has no mercy for Pinto da Costa’s mismanagement of the club. Porto’s latest financial figures show its debt and liabilities exceed $700 million, evidence of what he called a “dysfunctional structure”. He said the club was essentially in “operational bankruptcy”.
He claims Pinto da Costa allowed Porto, once a model for how clubs navigate the transfer market, to be used as a “negotiation warehouse” with control of its transfer strategy essentially handed over to a handful of favored agents . “The authority of the club has been replaced by the interests of certain intermediaries,” Villas-Boas said.
He sought assurances of electoral transparency and described the November violence as “one of the darkest days in Porto’s history”, leading to accusations that extremists were protecting what they saw as a beneficial relationship with the club’s current leaders. Villas-Boas believes that all this proves the urgent need for reform.
How Saturday’s election will play out is unclear: An expected record turnout bodes well for Villas-Boas, but the football team is an inherently conservative place, wary of drastic changes and wary of drastic changes. Get used to the familiar comfort quickly. For forty years, Porto has been Pinto da Costa’s fiefdom. It may be difficult for fans and members to imagine a world that is not like this.
What’s more obvious, and more frustrating, is that it’s not particularly difficult to draw the line between all of this – accusations and accusations, the palpable conspiracies, the pointed threats of actual violence – and what might have happened. There will be a larger electoral phase in the coming months. This seems to be how democracy will work in 2024, both for the future of the club and the future of the country.
Big strides, bigger shoes
It’s hard to argue that Arne Slott doesn’t deserve this opportunity. In three seasons at Feyenoord, he won the club’s second title this century, lifted the Dutch Cup and led the team to its first European final since 2002. The budget is much tighter than that of his domestic competitors.
It’s no surprise, then, that he’s the front-runner to succeed Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool. (As of this writing, the coach and club are discussing pay; the momentum seems likely to end in an appointment.)
Liverpool have committed to a data-led forensic approach to finding Klopp’s replacement. Slot machines tick most of the boxes. Liverpool may be betting that the biggest hole in his resume – experience dealing with the quality players he has found at Anfield – is a lack of opportunity rather than ability.
Slaughter’s biggest challenge isn’t the team, though. This will be fans. To many, Slott seemed like an underwhelming choice, and that’s not his responsibility but the responsibility of the man he will replace: Jurgen Klopp, who not only won almost everything in his nine years at Liverpool trophy while also establishing an ironclad connection with the crowd and much of the city.
If hired and given time, Slaughter might be able to replicate that, and maybe even surpass it. But there is unlikely to be enough time. For Slott, whoever replaces Klopp will face a huge challenge, which could happen if Liverpool find themselves eighth in the Premier League a few months into next season and already struggling to keep pace. What. Slot is a rational, logical choice. Klopp’s subsequent test was emotional.
David and Goliath. And Goliath and David.
There is no doubt that Chelsea’s win against Barcelona in the first leg of the Women’s Champions League semi-finals last week came as a surprise: after all, Barcelona Women have not lost in a year and not at home since their last game. Pass the ball. pandemic and became the overwhelming favorite to be crowned European champions again.
Still, the idea of Emma Hayes’ Chelsea as some sort of “Mighty Ducks”-style underdogs doesn’t really ring true to reality. After all, Chelsea have broken world transfer records at least twice, employed several of the world’s best-paid female players and have won the last four editions of Europe’s richest women’s competition, the Women’s Super League.
Of course, the pressure is on Barcelona to overturn a one-goal deficit and reach a fifth Champions League final in six years when the teams meet in London for the second leg on Saturday. But Chelsea also have certain expectations. The fact that it has yet to win a European title is an omission on Hayes’ impeccable resume. She certainly doesn’t want to leave England if the situation isn’t rectified.
