The Board of Directors of the Portuguese Professional Football League (LPFP) today unanimously approved the business plan and budget for 2023/24, the first to cover both the organization’s business group and accounts.
In addition to the PSSA, the document includes the “business school”, Liga Portugal Centralização, Liga Portugal Comercial and Liga Portugal Infraestruturas.
The budget includes “an operating profit forecast of over one million euros (1.1 million), in line with the average of recent years”, including overall sales of 26.5 million.
The document will be voted on again at the Annual General Meeting, scheduled for June 26, following a meeting of the Board of Directors at which Chairman Pedro Proença announced “the strengthening of compliance policies and due diligence mechanisms for the suitability of all members of the governing bodies, management and executive management”, as well as employees and collaborators.
Today, Mr. Proença admitted that he would have resigned had the former chairman of the general assembly, Mário Costa, not done so, after suspicions of human trafficking were revealed at a soccer school in Riba de Ave.
This is the investigation carried out by the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF) into Mário Costa and the soccer school to which he is linked, in the municipality of Famalicão, on suspicion of human trafficking, and in which the former leader was implicated.
The Porto Regional Attorney General’s Office said today that 33 minors have been removed from the soccer school, while other adults have been sent to shelters.
In a note published on its website, the Public Prosecutor’s Office states that the minors were removed after intervention by the competent authorities, and “because they were in a dangerous situation”.
According to a source at the SEF, 114 footballers have been identified, all from South America, Africa and Asia, and all undocumented in the country.
