Former Benfica president Luís Filipe Vieira said in court on Tuesday that the spread of emails about the club on the Porto Canal was “a strategy of FC Porto to tarnish the name of the Lisbon club”.
“Benfica was badly damaged in its image. The whole process was exhausting. Benfica was a highly professionalized club and its image was seriously damaged”said Luís Filipe Vieira, during the third session of the process of disclosure of Benfica e-mails in Porto Canal, which took place at the Central Criminal Court in Lisbon.
Vieira, who testified in court as an assistant to the case and thus had the privilege of not answering questions that could lead to self-incrimination, praised Benfica’s “credibility” vis-à-vis other clubs, which the defendant’s attorney, Francisco J. . . Marques, were classified as “an ode to self management”
“The club was way ahead of the others, whoever did this, he sullied Benfica,” he said, adding: “FC Porto had a strategy to sully Benfica’s name.”
The former Clube da Luz president, who described the case as “an attack on Benfica”, said that after the emails were released, he was called to Banco Comercial Português, where he was asked a question: “What is going on, there is or is there no corruption in Benfica?”.
Luís Filipe Vieira, who resigned as president of the club in July 2021 after being identified as an accused under the Red Card operation, said he has lost cases due to the distribution of content created on Porto. Canal, in 2017 and 2018 .
“I was negotiating with a Chinese group who predicted Benfica would receive $79 million, in six years that deal was lost. I also had problems with Emirates [patrocinadora do Benfica]he claimed.
The former ‘incarnate’ leader, who admitted to receiving dozens of emails in his mailbox during the period in question, said he was harmed on a personal and business level by the disclosure of the emails, “because he had from Benfica”.
“Whoever entered Benfica’s system entered my company’s system. Nobody had peace in the house, I had the onset of depression, because I was ashamed (…) My wife was confronted with these problems at the hairdresser and bakery.”he said.
Dating back to 2017 and 2018, the email disclosure case, which will reveal communications between elements related to the structure of Benfica and third parties in Porto Canal, has three defendants: journalist and former director of Porto Canal Júlio Magalhães, Communications Director of FC Porto, Francisco J. Marques and Diogo Faria, Content Director of the channel ‘dragões’.
Francisco J. Marques is charged with three crimes of violation of correspondence or telecommunications, three crimes of violation of aggravated correspondence or telecommunications, in apparent concurrence with three crimes of invasion of privacy, and one crime of unauthorized access. The FC Porto Communications Director is also responsible for five offenses against a legal person and one offense against a legal person aggravated by a private charge.
Content director Diogo Faria is liable for a crime of breach of correspondence or telecommunications and a crime of unlawful access, in addition to a crime against the legal person aggravated in a private charge.
Finally, Júlio Magalhães is charged by the Public Prosecution Service with three serious offenses for breach of correspondence or telecommunications, in apparent competition with three offenses of debauchery, as well as five serious offenses for violation of a legal person.
Source: DN
