The president of the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF), Fernando Gomes, found this Tuesday that the organization is the target of «many attempts at intrusion» in his system and repudiated, in court, the disclosure obtained illegally by the Football Leaks project , comparing it to a house theft.
“This information obtained illegally should not have been released. Score. We have long been creating conditions to prevent these attempts. We can’t help being uncomfortable, it’s like our house is being stolen. The FPF must preserve and not share the information it has in its custody ”, analyzed Fernando Gomes, through videoconference, at the hearing held at the 23rd session of the Football Leaks trial, taking place at the Central Criminal Court of Lisbon.
On the other hand, Fernando Gomes admits a possible contribution of the electronic platform for greater transparency in football and, in response to the defense of the main defendant in the process, Rui Pinto, confessed not to oppose the disclosure of contracts between clubs and players.
«My position is that agreements between private entities are a responsibility between them and, if they want, they have that capacity. I have no problem that they are disclosed, but in the normal way of processing them they are not disclosed », he said.
The 68-year-old official confirmed that he was only aware of the intrusion allegedly committed by Rui Pinto in the computer system “in August or September 2019”, when he was called by the Judicial Police (PJ) to identify information that had been found in the seized devices. However, he assumed that the FPF had been on the alert about a year earlier, when, in July 2018, the contracts for two Benfica players – Ferreyra and Castillo – had been made public.
«We made a contribution to the PJ against strangers, because we did not know who had meddled in the systems and without being sure that it had been through the FPF network. We did not know when there had been intrusion to have access to these documents ”, he explained, alluding to the circulation of these documents between the clubs themselves and the League.
At this Tuesday’s session, attorneys Nuno Barnabé and Inês Almeida Costa were also heard, both connected to PLMJ at the time of the facts of the case, in addition to secretary Lina Peres, as well as the member of the FPF Arbitration Council João Rocha and the agency’s technology director, Hugo Freitas, whose inquiry continues on November 19.
The trial continues on the 18th, next Wednesday, with the hearing of PJ’s computer specialist José Luís Cristóvão and the witnesses of the process assistants, João Medeiros and Inês Almeida Costa.
.
