Founded in 1919, Clube Futebol Os Belenenses can progress to the II Liga this Sunday (match against Amora at 3:30 p.m., broadcast on Canal 11) and return to the professional championships after a long crossing and five hellish years. “A place I should never have left,” shoots President Patrick Morais de Carvalho, who confesses to DN that he has experienced moments of “controlled fear” despite “the great advantage and the enormous responsibility” of relying only on oneself to achieve the goal pursued for many years.
There are still two games left to complete the promotion stage of Série B of Liga 3, and the Cruz de Cristo emblem has three points over Sanjoanense, four over Vilaverdense and ten over Amora. “Climbing up five levels since we went to hell five years ago is a source of great pride,” confessed the president of the Lisbon blues, admitting that no club, going through what Belenenses went through, is really ready to climb the step of professionalization as quickly as possible.
“If, or rather when they move up the division and return to the professional ranks, the club will have to create a Sociedade Anónima Desportiva (SAD) or a Sociedade Desportiva Unipessoal por Quotas (SDUQ). associated. That’s what the rules say,” he warns, aware of what went wrong when in 2012 the club opened up the capital of SAD to Codecity, from Rui Pedro Soares, who took 51.9%.
A connection that saved The Blues from immediate demise, but which proved toxic in the medium term and led to radical measures in the name of survival that created distrust: starting from scratch and creating a new senior football team to compete in district football in Lisbon. When at the end of 2017 more than 90% of the members agreed to sue the club’s then SAD to prevent the use of the symbols and name of “Os Belenenses”, it was clear to the management that this was the only way was .
After many exchanges of accusations and arguments, the court ruled last year that the now BSAD (currently in II Liga) has no connection with the club: “Belenenses cannot survive another fall like the one in 2012. It is up to us to create the conditions so that this never happens again. The rest is in the past and is no longer our concern since 2018. [quando o clube vendeu os 10% da BSAD que detinha].”
Despite this bad experience, the emblem cannot simply deny access to new shareholders. And according to Patrick Morais de Carvalho, there are interested parties, from Arab princes to American multimillionaires. “It is impossible to move forward as a club without private investment, because we don’t want a Belenenses to survive, but a Belenenses to live and let them live and dream. But I can guarantee that the club will always have the majority (51%) of a future SAD. If the option is SDUQ, the club will be a single member,” the blue leader assured, leaving the decision on the business model to be taken to the more than 11 thousand members.
For some time, the president of the Restelo emblem harbored the hope and belief that the club would only reach the I Liga again with its own resourcesbut he had to convince himself that “the inability to generate extraordinary revenue to halt the chronically hanging budget revenue from swimming pools, bingo and TV rights could lead to widespread defaults and panic at Restelo”.
Restelo requalification
Founded on a garden bench, in Praça Afonso de Albuquerque, in Belém, in 1919, Os Belenenses is one of five teams already champions in Portugal. It happened in the 1945-1946 season, even before the greatest player in the history of Belen (Matateu) and his brother (Vicente Lucas) arrived at Restelo.
Alfredo Quaresma, Jorge Jesus, Marinho Peres, Tuck, Silas and Zé Pedro were some of those who raised the emblem of the cross of Christ before the Descent into Hell. The club celebrated its centenary in the districts in 2019. A pain supported only by the desire to return the team to the First League and animated by a super commercial agreement with Lidl, which will allow to reclassify Complexo do Restelo, in an investment estimated at 14 million euros.
The supermarket has been built but not yet opened and the British School of Lisbon (BSL) project for the construction of the College and the Swimming Pool has not yet started, as well as the construction of the Senior Residences and the construction of the two training fields.
Fighting fear and impatience is the motto. The Restelo Stadium, a hidden treasure at the back of the Jerónimos Monastery overlooking the Tagus River, the 25 de Abril Bridge and Cristo Rei, has reached a level of degradation “not suitable for professional competitions”. It is necessary to install more powerful lighting towers, create safety boxes for opponents, signage in the stands, stadium and parking lot, creation of a new press bench and technical park, radio and TV booths, stations for TV cameras, installations for disabled toilets in all grandstands, security areas, improvements to the CCTV circuit, new benches for substitutes, an irrigation system… and a host of small impact improvements costing thousands of euros.
Liga 3. Difficult season
Belenenses is in 1st place in the promotion phase of Série 2 of Liga 3, with three wins and a draw in four games, and today can guarantee promotion and return to the professional leagues for the first time in five years. It could have done it last weekend, but Sanjoanense didn’t lose in the journey to Amora’s compound… where the blues now takes place. And if you don’t reach your goal today, you still have a chance – at Restelo, next Sunday.
The season could have ended in a better way, but less than a year ago, the president lowered fans’ expectations and took the pressure off the team when he said the project could last two or three seasons in Liga 3. Patrick Morais de Carvalho knew that he would play the most balanced league in Portugal, where 80% of the games are decided by the minimum margin and cannot go to the market to strengthen itself.
The total budget for enrollment, insurance, player and coaching staff salaries, social security and IRS charges, transportation, food, medical, police, game organization, lawn care, B-team and reinforcements in January is about 700 thousand euros, one of the lowest of the 24 teams in Liga 3.
The season started with 10 footballers representing Cruz de Cristo in the Portuguese championship – Serra and Alex have followed the epic from the beginning -, the return of four players on loan (Valverde, Zé Pedro, Duarte Henriques and Rui Pereira) and the promotion of three juniors (Teopisto, Pedro Carvalho and Moninhas). That’s how Taira, the sporting director, one of the historic players of Belenenses in modern times with 134 matches, has built and strengthened the squad with athletes with experience from Liga 3 and Martelo ex-Paços de Ferreira.
After a resounding start to the season, Belenenses went through a mid-season results crisis – they scored four points out of a total of 18 – which shook the project and ambitions, but not faith. And the winter reinforcements gave the team another boost. Chaby and Heldon were assets for the team, as were Chima Akas, Nigerian A-international, and Midana Sambú and Guilherme Oliveira, last season’s Liga 3 champions, who can repeat the title under the management of Bruno Dias.
Hiring the coach was “perhaps the most relevant decision” of management, according to Patrick Morais de Carvalho: “When I shook hands with Bruno Dias, the first thing he asked me was what the promotion fee was.”
Source: DN
