The BE will request an urgent hearing to the president of the FPF, Fernando Gomes, to explain the contracts with the Spanish Roberto Martínez and Fernando Santos, current and former selectors, respectively, according to the request to which Lusa had access today.
The president of the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) is available to go to the Assembly of the Republic (AR), “as soon as possible”, if approved the hearing requested by the Left Bloc (BE), said this Tuesday to Lusa the official source of the body.
The BE will request an urgent hearing to the president of the FPF, Fernando Gomes, to explain the contracts with the Spanish Roberto Martínez and Fernando Santos, current and former selectors, respectively, according to the request that Lusa had access today.
“The president of the FPF will be available, as he has always been in the past, to participate in any initiative of parliamentary committees,” assured the official source of the federation, questioned by Lusa on the request submitted to the Committee on Budget and Finance of the AR.
The leader himself assured this availability, “as soon as possible, if the presence is useful”.
“The president of the FPF will be available as of next Friday, if he so wishes, after international commitments scheduled for this week,” detailed the same source, adding that if the hearing is not approved, “Fernando Gomes will maintain the same availability to receive a delegation of the BE in the City of Football”.
In the request submitted by the BE, to which Lusa had access, the request for a hearing with the federative president is due to news that “the Public Ministry is investigating suspected fiscal crime in the way the FPF paid salaries to Fernando Santos and the technical team of the men’s national soccer team”.
“In September 2014, the FPF has made a contract for services with the company of the selector, Femacosa, created that same year. According to the Expresso newspaper, the selector will have received, in 2016 and 2017, through this company, 10 million euros (with 25% having been transferred to companies created in the meantime by the deputies). But only declared and paid IRS on the annual salary of 70 thousand”, adds the document.
According to the BE, “the way of payment of salaries was at the origin of the requirement of settlement of 4.5 million euros of taxes made by the Tax Authority, who considered that, with this formula, the selector will have tried to escape the payment of higher taxes through the IRS”.
The Bloco draws attention to the fact that, more recently, the FPF has so far not revealed “how much it will pay the new coach [the Spaniard Roberto Martinez] and refuses to explain what type of contract it will sign with the Spanish coach’s technical team: whether it continues to want to hire everything in a package, to a company that coordinates the technical team, or whether it will sign individual contracts”.
The party recalls that “the FPF is a non-profit legal person of public utility, constituted as an association under private law, whose main objective is to promote, regulate and direct the teaching and practice of soccer in all variants and competitions, with exclusive authority in Portugal to organize national teams of the sport.
Thus, “the character of public utility of this entity and the importance of this sport imposes on the FPF an obligation of transparency and accuracy.
“The suspicions of tax and social security evasion are contrary to this obligation. For all this, it is essential that the payment mechanisms and contracts entered into by the FPF are fully clarified,” he says.
Fernando Santos led the national team between October 2014 and December 2022, having won the first two senior international trophies for Portugal, with victory in Euro2016 and the 2019 Nations League.
The Spaniard Roberto Martínez was presented as the successor of the now Poland’s selector, last January 9.
