The president of the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) is available to go “as soon as possible” to the General Assembly of the Republic (AR), if the hearing required by the Left Bloc (BE) is approved, he told Lusa on Tuesday. official source of the organism.
BE will request an urgent hearing from the President of the FPF, Fernando Gomes, to explain the contracts with Spaniard Roberto Martínez and Fernando Santos, current and former selectors, respectively, according to the request that Lusa had access to today.
“The president of the FPF will be available, as he always has been in the past, to participate in any initiative of the parliamentary committees,” assured an official federal source questioned by Lusa about the application submitted to the AR’s Budget and Finance Commission.
The leader himself assured this availability “as soon as possible, in case the presence is useful”.
“The president of the FPF will be available from next Friday, if so, following an international commitment scheduled for this week,” the same source stated, adding that, if the audition is not approved, “Fernando Gomes will be the same maintain readiness to receive a BE delegation in Cidade do Futebol”.
In the application filed by BE, which Lusa had access to, the request to be heard by the federative president comes amid news that “the Public Prosecutor’s Office will investigate suspected tax crimes in the way the FPF paid Fernando’s salaries Santos and the coaching staff of the national men’s football team”.
“In September 2014, the FPF concluded a service contract with the selector’s company, Femacosa, which was founded in the same year. According to the newspaper Expresso, the selector would have received 10 million euros in 2016 and 2017 through this company (25% has been transferred to companies that have since established by the deputies. But he only declared and paid IRS on his annual salary of 70 thousand,” the document adds.
According to BE, “the form of wage payment was at the basis of the demand for settlement of 4.5 million euros in taxes from the tax authorities, who believed that with this formula the coach was trying to avoid having to pay higher taxes through them”.
De Bloco draws attention to the fact that, more recently, the FPF has so far failed to reveal “how much it will pay the new selector [o espanhol Roberto Martinez] and refuses to explain what kind of contract he will sign with the Spanish coach’s technical team: whether he will continue to rent everything in a package, to a company that coordinates the technical team, or whether he will sign individual contracts”.
That party recalls that “the FPF is a not-for-profit collective person of public benefit, established in the form of a private-law association, the main purpose of which is to promote, regulate and direct the education and practice of football in all variants and competitions , with exclusive authority in Portugal to organize national teams of the modality”.
In this way, “the public utility character of this entity and the importance this sport assumes impose on the FPF an obligation of transparency and rigor”.
“Suspicions of tax and social security evasion run counter to that obligation. For all these reasons, it is essential to fully clarify the payment mechanisms and contracts signed by the FPF,” he says.
Fernando Santos captained the national team between October 2014 and December 2022, having won Portugal’s first two senior international trophies, with wins at Euro 2016 and the 2019 League of Nations.
The Spaniard Roberto Martínez was presented on January 9 as the successor to the current national coach of Poland.
Source: DN
